Find Our Way Home
by bravevulnerability
Summary: "No matter what you do, no matter the obstacles that arise or the mistakes either of us make, I'll never be able to give up on us." After nearly two years apart, Castle and Beckett attempt to find their way back home in time for the holiday season. A season 8 AU.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This story is based off of the idea that season 8 took an alternate path after the events of 8x02, XX. I intend for a chapter to be posted every day from now until the impending Christmas holiday and I hope that, similar to last year, this story can be seen as a way of showing my appreciation this holiday season to all who take the time to read my work and show me such beautiful encouragement.**

* * *

 _"And the night smells like snow._  
 _Walking home for a moment_  
 _you almost believe you could start again._  
 _And an intense love rushes to your heart,_  
 _and hope. It's unendurable, unendurable."_

 _\- Franz Wright, "Night Walk"_

* * *

She doesn't know what exactly possessed her to call him last night, to leave him a voicemail when he didn't answer, requesting that he meet her at their old favorite cafe that she hasn't been to since… well, since they had rushed inside on a rainy day in late July over two years ago, seeking shelter and a decent meal.

Kate fiddles with the lid of her travel cup, resisting the urge to nervously jiggle her knee beneath the table and check her phone for the seventh time since she arrived ten minutes ago. When she had called last night, it had been late, nearly three in the morning, and she had known there was a chance he wouldn't answer, had bet on it actually. Speaking to him again was a terrifying idea, but if she was going to embrace it anyway, she wanted it to be in person.

So she had called him at 3 a.m., left him a brief, awkward message asking him to meet her in this secluded, hole in the wall cafe in SoHo, not too far from his loft, and ended the call with nothing more than her millionth apology and a whispered goodnight. Not that she had slept.

Nerves like razor-winged butterflies had inhabited her stomach for the night, for the morning that followed, and now they swarmed, shredding her insides. He may not even show.

Kate sighs, frowning down at her cooling cup of coffee. Black. She had given up on trying to make it like him, on hoping a talented barista could match it, and so she had desensitized her taste buds, drank her coffee bitter and black for the last two years.

Her back is to the door, because she can't bear the agony of looking up every time she hears it open, can't handle the disappointment that will flare each time it isn't him. Her fingers do pause in their fidgeting, though, when her ears catch the push of the door, when the spill of midmorning light reflecting off of the glass entryway spills onto the surface of her table.

Somehow, without even looking, she knows it's him. Still attuned to his presence, her body straightens with awareness, her nerves rioting worse than ever, and her chest expands with a deep breath. It has to be him.

Beckett doesn't turn her head, waiting for him to make the first move, allowing the opportunity to back out before he can step back into the whirlwind of her world, if only for a matter of minutes.

His footsteps are soft, quiet, but demand her attention the second they come into view. Richard Castle doesn't pause, though, slipping into the seat across from her without a second of hesitation, and it shouldn't give her hope, there's nothing left to hope for. But it does.

Kate lifts her eyes to meet his across the table, those same bright blue eyes she had fallen in love with, only… they no longer shine, not for her anyway. There is something soft and subdued lining his lips, blooming through his irises, but it isn't enough to mask the pallor to his skin, the dull shade of grey coloring those eyes she can barely recognize. He's thinner too, she notes, his cheeks far more hollow than she ever remembered, and tired. He looks so very tired.

"Kate." Her name coming from his lips is almost enough to make her cry on the spot, but Beckett swallows down the treacherous rise of emotion, attempts to muster up something akin to a smile for him.

"Castle," she replies, his name a precious, beloved thing on her tongue. "How are you?"

Gentle confusion creases his brow and Rick tilts his head to the side, eyes her cautiously, warily. "I thought you… I didn't know we were meeting just to - to have small talk?"

"Is that okay?" Oh, and she thought the swarm of nerves in her stomach had quieted, but no, it's wide awake and flaring now.

"I - yes? Just after almost two years of radio silence, I didn't exactly expect this," Rick hedges, his palm rising to rub at the back of his neck. "I figured you'd only want to meet to discuss something case related. Or the divorce."

She gives up on the fight with her jittery knee, allows the anxious habit to prevail. "No, not exactly. I just… wanted to see you."

"Oh." Castle, to his credit, is handling any apprehension or discomfort far better than her, clasping his hands atop the table and taking a deep breath to steady himself. "I'm not - I'm good, I guess. Well, kind of. Okay, no. I've been better."

Her lips quirk. Perhaps not as calm and collect as she had thought.

"How are Alexis and Martha doing?"

"You just talked to Alexis the other day, didn't you?" he questions, an edge to his voice that she hadn't expected. She had prepared for anger though; she deserves it.

"She only called me to consult on a case, one that coincided with the firm's," Beckett informs him with a light nod. "I haven't seen her since… I haven't seen her. And she wasn't calling to speak with me, just the Captain of the homicide division."

Castle deflates a little at that, but not with relief. "Oh," he repeats, his lips settling into a frown that appears all too normal, the lines bracketing his mouth far too severe. "Well, then you know she's doing well, taking the P.I business by storm. And Mother is well… you know her."

A chuckle scrapes past her lips, a mangled thing that hasn't crawled up her throat in a long while. She had seen Martha twice since their separation, once in the beginning, when the older woman had stopped by the precinct, and again six months later, to deliver the same, soft-spoken lecture. She hadn't told Martha the truth, but she had given the other woman a hint to her logic behind leaving, and since then, his mother had backed off.

Part of her wishes she hadn't.

"Are you doing okay?" Kate sobers at the simple question, the rehearsed _I'm fine_ already forming on her tongue, but her head is already shaking. "Beckett?"

"No," she mumbles, lowering her eyes to the unfailing safety of her coffee cup. "Castle, the main reason I called you here was to apologize."

"For?"

"For the last two years, for destroying our marriage, for… for the night I walked out to begin with," she rasps, and no, _no_ , she swore she would not cry. Kate blinks back the stinging threat of moisture, forces herself to stop being a coward and to meet the brittle concern in his gaze. "I thought I was doing the right thing, that I was protecting you from getting hurt or - or worse."

Castle's confusion dissipates beneath the suspicion that swirls in his darkening eyes that narrow in on her. "Protecting me? Are you saying… I had been right, hadn't I?"

"Rick-"

"No, I knew whatever it was, whatever changed your mind about us, it was connected to that case, to Bracken-"

"I never changed my mind about you," she murmurs, fighting to keep her composure, but he's beginning to lose his.

"You chose a case over our marriage."

Horror blooms in her chest, spreads like disease to her face, consuming every ounce of control she may have had left. "I didn't-"

"You did," he hisses, squaring his jaw, the tendons in his neck bulging against the barrier of his skin. "You walked out that door that night and you never - you never came back home because you'd rather chase down demons. I can't… I had never believed Bracken would be right."

"He was _not-_ "

"Being my wife never could have been enough for you," he mutters, his anger fading, that hollowed out sorrow returning to claim him, engulfing him as he rises from the seat across from her, his eyes hardened and aimed at the door. "This was a mistake."

"Castle, wait," she gasps, staggering up from her chair and following him out of the café and into the bitter December air, a sharp pain reverberating through her chest with every step. "I'm the one who made the mistake," she calls after him, dodging pedestrians to catch up to his quick stride, curling her fingers around his forearm and bracing for him to shrug out of her touch.

But he doesn't. Castle doesn't slow, but he doesn't slap away her fingers either.

"I'll tell you everything. I'll explain all of it and then I'll mail the papers." Rick stumbles over a crack in the sidewalk, but her grip restricts him from falling, steadying him. "Castle, I know I don't deserve the time, but can I just have a few minutes with you?"

He stares down at her as if she's struck him, confused and hurt, and oh, Castle. She yearns to soothe him, to make up for all of the irreparable damage she has done.

Rick doesn't answer her, shaking her hand from its place on her arm and clasping it firmly in his before her heart can sink, starting towards the once familiar path down Broome street with a blank expression and determination in his stride.


	2. Chapter 2

It's her first time in the loft since their separation had become far more real than she had ever planned, since she had stopped by to shove the rest of her things into a cramped suitcase and left her key on the dresser, and despite the time that's passed, the changes that have occurred, she had still expected for it to feel like home, for it to _look_ like home.

She had been wrong.

The initial design is the same, a few pieces of furniture moved, the contents of the bookshelves rearranged and the coffee table in a different spot, but the place looks more like a rental than the well-loved home she once knew. It's so bland, so bare and devoid of life, the personal touches of him, of their life, their memories, no longer on the walls, the shelves.

The front door slams shut once she's stepped inside and Rick shrugs out of his coat, hangs it in the coat closet without much care, doesn't offer to take hers. The remainder of their walk from the café had been tense, the elevator ride up to the top floor of the building even worse, and he had shaken off her hand the second the doors to the lift had closed. Her fingers have been chilled, jittery and mourning the loss, ever since.

"I'm thinking about selling it."

Castle steps past her, heading for the kitchen, and she stumbles but follows him with confusion creasing her brow. "Selling what?"

"The loft," he replies over his shoulder, so blasé and nonchalant, as if it's far from a big deal.

"W-what? Why?" she demands, watching him retrieve a mug from one of the kitchen cabinets while he flips the switch on the coffeemaker.

"Why not?" he tosses back, training his eyes on the machine whirring to life on the counter, and Kate grits her teeth. She's aware that she has no right to be irritated over this, to feel hurt over his flippant manor. It's a defense mechanism she had grown to recognize over time, shrugging off the issue, masking it with cool indifference, but it's been a long while since he's used it on her.

"Because," she murmurs, bracing her hip against the island, twining her arms over her chest to refrain from fidgeting. "This is your home."

"Not much of a home anymore, Beckett." The bite of her surname punctures the battered muscle of her heart, the words that follow ensuring its demise. "You asked for a few minutes, said you would explain," he prompts, glaring down at the brewing coffee, refusing to look at her.

She has already cried in front of him once today, she absolutely cannot allow the lump in her throat, the sting in her eyes, to prevail again, so she copies his method, turns her back on him.

"You remember the case, Allison Hyde's killer?" she begins, chewing on her bottom lip and listening to his hum of acknowledgement. "The only reason he let us live, let me live, was because LockSat thought that his cover had worked."

"LockSat?"

"I never found out their identity," she sighs, frowning down at the kitchen floor, the disappointment in herself, the regret over all she had given up just to fall down another rabbit hold flaring up again, ready to eat her alive. "All I learned was that they were Bracken's partner, linked to the CIA-"

"Practically untouchable," Castle murmurs the assessment and Kate nods even though she knows he isn't looking at her.

"I thought - I thought I could do it," she confesses on a breath that shakes, rattles in her chest, and she presses her folded arms in tighter to keep herself together just a little while longer. "And I thought that I could do it in a matter of weeks, months at most. If LockSat would have found out I was still investigating the case, they would have killed me. And anyone I was close to."

"So pushing me away was your bright idea?" he mutters, his voice louder, aimed towards her instead of the gurgling machine, and Beckett takes another deep breath that does nothing for her nerves, before she turns back to face him. "Going rogue and lone vengeance on this for _two years_ was the smartest move in your mind?"

The rage and incredulity battle for dominance in the dark clouds of his eyes, flaring like lightning bolts in a gathering storm, and it takes all of her courage not to shrink back like a child receiving a lecture.

"At the time," she admits, pursing her lips to stop them from trembling. "It wasn't the best idea, I see that now, but the thought of them coming after you… I would have died if I lost you."

"And you think that doesn't go both ways?" he roars at her, abandoning his spot against the counter, striding up to her with his chest heaving and his eyes furious but beseeching, so raw and wounded. "I would have walked into a fucking tornado for you, Kate. I would have done anything-"

"You think I don't know that?" she hisses, matching his stance, but she doesn't want to fight. All she wants is to wrap him in her arms, soothe the scars she's caused and bandage the wounds while she begs for his forgiveness, for him to make room in his heart for her again. All she wants is to rip up the divorce papers still strewn across her kitchen table and return to their bed, to find rest in his arms after two years of horrific dreams and sleepless nights. All she wants is the chance to love him again, to love him right. "You jumped in front of a bullet for me, Rick. I couldn't risk that happening again."

"It wasn't your decision to make," he growls, his hands turning to fists at his sides. "You want to know what hurts the most?" She doesn't, she really doesn't, but she hardens her jaw, braces herself and prepares for the words to sting like salt in all of her open wounds. "You could have come to me with everything, broken us up, just like you did only it would have been a cover and together, in secret, we could have taken this guy down. Only that thought never even occurred to you because deep down inside, you like being broken."

His words cleave her in half, the remorse that's become a daily companion swallowing her whole, and she backs away from him, tries so hard to resist the urge to clutch at her chest, to press her fist to the phantom ache of a faded bullet scar.

"And you need this obsession, Kate. More than you ever needed me."

"That's not true," she gets out, her protest fierce but threatening to fall apart, to crumble into a choked sob. "You come before everything else. I always wanted you more than anything else."

"Bullshit-"

" _No_ , you had been the one good thing," she grates out, the gravel in her throat ruining her attempts to keep her composure, but she's past caring. "Our relationship, our marriage, was never perfect, but it was beautiful and sacred and I - I knew when that case came up, when I couldn't let it go, that I could fall down the rabbit hole, that it could be my mother's case all over again. I didn't want to taint us, taint you, more than I already had."

"Katherine Beckett-"

"I'm broken, but I thought I could fix myself," she murmurs, giving in and sealing her palm to the raised flesh above her heart, applying the pressure she needs to help her breathe past the beginnings of a panic attack. "I thought I could change it all on my own without any help. And I knew you couldn't change it for me, no matter how much better you made my life, no matter how happy you made me, but I… we could have done it together. Everything."

His eyes are piercing, hooking into her chest and reeling her bloodied heart to spear against her ribcage, but she can't look at him, not anymore. He wanted the truth, an explanation, and she had given it. Now it was time for her to go, put them both out of their misery.

"It doesn't mean much, especially not now, but I'm sorry that I hurt you, Rick, that I ruined our marriage," Kate whispers, the only way for her voice to sound anywhere near even. "That was never what I wanted. Not even close."

He remains silent and Beckett takes that as her cue to go, forcing her gaze to stick to the toes of her boots as she moves to step past him, prepared to head for the door, leave the remains of her heart at his feet in the shell of what was once their home.

"I'll mail the papers in the morning."

Her eyes flutter closed once she's out of the kitchen, headed for the door, and she decides to wait until she's in the safety of the hallway to wipe at the renegade tears streaking down her cheeks. Rick's fingers hook in the crook of her elbow before she can make it there.

"Where are you now?" Kate glances over her shoulder to see him, his eyes searching hers, imploring and hurt and hopeful. For what, she isn't sure. "With the case, with LockSat?"

"I'm - nowhere," she mumbles, lowering her gaze to the sight of his fingers, long and thick and curled around her arm, the warmth of his skin penetrating the fabric of her peacoat. "I passed it onto an agent who had helped me once in the beginning, who had already been tracking the case and advised me against pursuing it in the first place."

"Smart agent," he mutters, loosening his grip on her arm, but she doesn't want him to let go. "You're done with it then?"

"I've been done with it for a little over a month now," Kate sighs, scraping her unrestrained hand through her hair. "I kept thinking that I was so close to solving it, to learning the truth. I would get a new lead, follow it through for months, only to come up empty. Over and over again. I guess the divorce papers were a wake up call."

"But you waited this long to contact me?" he questions, his brow knitting and she flexes her fingers at the urge to reach up, smooth out the crease, caress all of the deep lines she's probably to blame for.

"I didn't think you wanted contact from me, Rick. I thought deciding on a divorce... I don't blame you, I just thought you'd want the opposite."

"Then why now? Why decide to show up now?"

"Because I-" Her throat is dry, her words turning to gravel that she attempts to swallow down. "The last lead I had was the closest I'd ever come, the closest I've ever been to learning who was behind LockSat, and allowing them the chance to figure out I was purusing them. Vikram wanted-"

Rick growls, mutters something about a 'sorry substitute for a partner' under his breath, but purses his lips, urges her to continue with a sharp nod.

"He wanted to keep going, thought we were finally going to figure it all out, so I called Rita, your - the agent I mentioned. She told me the only thing I was going to accomplish was getting myself killed, that I had already lost enough to LockSat, and I thought of you." Kate tentatively lifts her eyes, not expecting mercy, even an ounce of understanding, but finding it hiding in the depths of his gaze, beneath the anger and the sorrow. "That argument we had in my apartment, right before the fight with Maddox on the roof, you mentioned dying for my cause. I didn't want that. I don't."

Castle purses his lips, the memory of that night flashing in his eyes, the outcome that had followed.

"I waited the extra month to ensure that I wasn't being watched, that I wouldn't lead anyone to you," she explains, wiping the sweat of her palms on the outer thighs of her slacks. "Because even if it doesn't seem like it, you were always my top priority in all of this. And I may have gone about it wrong, but I couldn't lose you, Rick. I can't. If I haven't already."

It's his turn to sigh, to rub his fingers over his eyes in frustration, exhaustion, but when he drops his hand back to his side, he snags her gaze, narrows his eyes on her with a challenge flickering to life in the pools of faded blue.

"Do you want to sign those papers?"

"No," she replies without a beat of hesitation, retreating from her escape plan, rotating on the spot to face him properly. "Do you want me to sign them?"

Castle retracts his hand from her arm, but shakes his head. "I never wanted you to sign them."

"Then-"

"But we can't just – I filed for divorce because I thought there was no hope left for us, Kate," he tells her, not ashamed or guilty, he has no reason to be, but… sad, as if the weight of that decision has returned to sit upon his shoulders with full force.

"Then let me prove you wrong," Beckett offers, hoping he can't hear the underlying pleading in her voice, the need she can taste in the back of her throat. "It can't go back to the way it was before, I know that, but… we can fix our marriage, Rick. We can find our way back home."

Subtle excitement flares in his eyes, electric blue and luminescent, but it fades out just as quickly, casting shadows across his face, deepening those frown lines embracing his mouth. He doubts her, doesn't trust her, and she doesn't blame him.

"I love you, Castle." His eyes squeeze shut. "Do you… do you still love me?"

"Don't ask me that," he grunts, ready to step back from her, but Kate coils her fingers around his wrist as it falls away, stays him. "Of course I still love you. That's - that's what's made all of this so damn painful."

She brushes her thumb along the strong bone of his forearm in silent apology, he's heard enough from her lips to last a lifetime.

"Agonizing," she agrees on a quiet exhale, before drawing him in an inch closer, holding his gaze with a determination she hasn't felt in years stirring in her stomach, rising like fire to spread through her chest, burn away the rot and decay that's overtaken her ribcage. "You can't just take me back, but… I can do whatever it takes to show you that I can fix what I broke, that we can be even better than we were before."

Castle cocks his head in curiosity, still doubtful, but a lot more hopeful now too. "I - okay, how?"

Kate bites her bottom lip, stalling because even in her own head, this idea sounds stupid, but he deserves more than an apology, he deserves a true effort, he deserves someone who will fight for him.

"I'll make you fall in love with me again."

A surprised breath of laughter slips past his lips, brittle and unexpected, as if the sound hasn't left the confines of his chest in too long. "Kate, you already did that. We're married."

"Yeah, but we haven't been able to act like a married couple for the last two years because of me," she points out, trailing her fingers down from his wrist to embrace his hand. Those first few months, staying away hadn't been possible. Not completely. He had shown up at her precinct, she had appeared at Remy's knowing he'd be there, and eventually he'd found the new address to her apartment. But that hadn't been what their marriage was supposed to be; it wasn't the kind of marriage he deserved. "We can't just dive back in, but we can wade in the shallows, swim for a while until we're back in the deeper waters."

His eyes soften, harsh indigo gentling into a calm cerulean, and for the first time in two years, her heart beats hard with hope and vigor.

"Okay. When do we start wading?"

Kate tugs her bottom lip between her teeth, a grin twitching at the corners of her mouth when his eyes flicker down to caress the bad habit with his gaze.

"Are you free tomorrow night?"


	3. Chapter 3

Kate combs her fingers through her hair, growling at the renegade curl that refuses to settle with the rest, and tries to manage a deep breath. It's just a date with her husband, something they did often throughout their years together, even _before_ they were together, but it feels like a first date, like something foreign and new, and with it comes the first date jitters that she hasn't encountered in ages.

Beckett sighs and abandons her hair for a minute, focuses on her reflection in the mirror instead. She brushes her fingers over her cheeks, the sharpened edges of her bones slicing across her fingertips, and frowns back at herself for it. She's a little more hollow, the reminder to eat often evading her, her appetite just as elusive, and never had she relied on Rick to ensure she kept a decent meal plan, but his home cooked dinners and abundant leftovers hadn't hurt. Since their separation, she had fallen back into the habit of turning her fridge into a Styrofoam temple and often ignoring the necessity of grocery shopping.

Her efforts had increased somewhat within the last month, though. The desire to be better, to be a little less broken for him, encouraging her to pay a more attention to her health. Progress has been made on that front, she's sure of it, or else the worry in Ryan and Esposito's eyes would still be prominent and glaring every time they looked at her.

Kate adds an extra touch of concealer beneath her eyes, another sweep of mascara to her lashes to bring out the gold hiding beneath the swatches of brown and green, and blinks in approval. He saw her on the verge of tears yesterday, barely clinging to her composure, but she wants… she wants to be beautiful for him tonight, to _feel_ beautiful again after being overshadowed by darkness for nearly two years.

She forces herself to step back from the mirror, to stop overanalyzing every inch of her skin, and checks the time. Ten minutes to five, she had time, but she quickens her barefooted padding across her bedroom to tug on a pair of socks and her favorite boots. She had told Castle she'd be on his doorstep by five-thirty, having an entire evening planned to spend with him.

When they had first started dating, it had been Rick who had pulled out all of the stops, arranged the majority of their dates and put forth a majority of the romantic efforts. Now it was her turn.

She had spent the entire morning planning, calling in a couple of favors that she thinks even Castle would be impressed by, and beneath the nerves, those butterflies with razor-edged wings still scraping through her stomach, she's excited. Giddy, even, and she can hardly remember the last time her heart had fluttered with the silly but wonderful sensation.

Kate smiles to herself as she zips up her boots and reaches for the coat she has thrown over the armchair near her bed, checking her purse to ensure she has everything before starting for the door, the click of her heels echoing through the small, empty apartment. She has to dodge the short towers of cardboard boxes on her way to the front entrance, avoiding the packaged up dishes and knick knacks Rick had mailed to her in September, when he must have finally accepted that she was never coming back. She had never unpacked, merely digging through the boxes if she was in need of a specific item. Castle had taken the time to neatly label everything for her and it had had her crying even harder the night her things were delivered to her doorstep.

She hadn't unpacked, and she certainly didn't plan to anytime soon.

Kate jerks at the door, grunting when it sticks, and strides down the hall, buttoning her coat as she jogs down the stairs. With her luck, the untrustworthy elevator would get stuck and she'd miss her date, ruin all of her carefully crafted plans.

Snow is falling when she steps outside, light and misting through the pale sky, clinging to the locks of her hair and the shoulders of her coat. She's grown to love this weather, to forgive the winter for acts it was never responsible for, but opts for a cab to travel the distance between her place in Tribeca and the loft despite the temptation to walk. The fifteen minute drive crawls by slowly, though, and she almost regrets her decision. At least walking would have given her an outlet for all of the nervous energy bubbling beneath the surface of her skin.

Kate fidgets with her gloves in the backseat, fights with the urge to let her knee bounce and jiggle. It's just Castle, just the man whose heart she broke with her own two hands, just the man she loves in a way that is almost painful.

"Hey, honey, you gonna get out or just let my meter run?"

Kate swallows and pays the expectant cabbie before promptly sliding out of the cab and starting for a building that was once her home. She doesn't recognize the doorman in the lobby when she enters and she bites back the question on her tongue, wondering what happened to Eduardo, hoping that he finally learned how to take a few extra days off since his daughter was born. Hoping the doorman who had always offered her a friendly smile and encouraging winks every time she entered the building with Castle hadn't quit before she could wish him a farewell.

Her thoughts and concerns over the doorman fade away on her ride up the elevator, anticipation coiling low in her stomach, blooming to consume her chest as the doors to the lift slide open and her feet carry her down the hall to his door.

She allows herself no more than a moment, a quick breath to fill her lungs, before she knocks on his door, the rap of her knuckles confident and strong, everything she lacks. The steady pattern of his footsteps approaching steals her attention and a second later, the door is swinging open and Castle is standing in front of her, dressed in a rich purple dress shirt, a fitting pair of slacks, and a blazer that sits well on his broad shoulders.

"Hey, we match," he chuckles, already smiling at her, and her lips spread in relief.

She's aware that the anger towards her is still alive, a dull roar that likely inhabits his chest, hidden away for now, but she's accepting of the rightful existence of his fury. She earned it. But his eyes are shining at her now, the tentative excitement she's felt all evening reflecting back at her, and Kate nods, tries to quell the hopeful stretch of her lips from splitting her face in two.

"I guess we do," she concedes, glancing down to the royal purple of the sweater that hugs her curves and slims her waist. "The boys would have fun with this one."

Castle releases another chuckle and steps out into the hall with her, locking up the front door behind him, and Kate allows her eyes to wander from the styled strands of his hair to the polished toes of his shoes while his back is turned. She had told him to dress comfortable, as casual as he preferred, but seeing him in attire that could so easily pass as formal has her wishing she had slipped into that blood red dress she had bought specifically for a night out with him. It still hung in her closet now, the garment bag gathering dust.

"You look beautiful, as always, Kate," he murmurs, turning towards her with his eyes bright blue and sparkling, and she resists the fierce desire to step into him, to cover the gentle grin of his mouth with the press of hers.

Too soon, far too soon.

"Thank you, Castle," she whispers back, holding her arm out to him and trying not to overflow with delight when he takes it. They have a long road ahead of them, but they're taking the first few steps, and she hopes that by the end of the night, a small portion of his faith in her will be renewed.

* * *

"You rented out the Angelika?" he gapes as she leads him inside the empty screening room, grateful for the dim lighting to hide her pride, her ridiculous smile while his eyes rove over the rows of empty seats with childlike wonder.

"No, I rented out one of the screening rooms for the next two hours," she corrects, rescuing his large bucket of popcorn from the crook of his elbow before it goes crashing to the floor. "Feel free to pick a seat."

"How did you even - Kate, you're not paying for this are you? Because I know this is important, but-"

"I didn't pay anything more than the normal price for tickets and snacks," she assures him, nudging him forward with her hip and following him down the aisle he chooses. "I know a guy and he owed me a favor."

Castle pauses to glance at her over his shoulder, a flash of intrigue and attraction rippling through his eyes in the darkness.

"You still haven't even told me what we're seeing tonight," he quips, easing down into one of the seats and accepting his popcorn back from her, assisting her in filling their cup holders with his soda and her bottled water.

"You'll see in a few minutes," she teases, taking a seat next to him and popping open her bag of gummy bears.

The lights dim, the screen comes to life, and Kate holds out her candy, smiling when he scoops up a handful of the gummy bears without hesitation and deposits them into his popcorn. As if this routine of theirs had never changed. She would never be a fan of the salty and sweet contrast like he was, but she was happy to return to aid in his juxtaposing food choices.

The opening credits begin to play and she laughs quietly at Castle's soft gasp, sneaks a peek from the corner of her eye to watch the knowledge fill his eyes and illuminate his face.

"Forbidden Planet?" he whispers despite it being only the two of them in the room. "You… you arranged for us to watch Forbidden Planet in one of the best theaters in the city?"

Kate shrugs and drops her gaze into her lap as the film score surrounds them, echoes through the room as the story on the screen begins to unfold.

"I know it seems a bit overboard, but I just wanted – I know I was with someone else the first time we did this, but I still remember coming here to see Forbidden Planet with you six years ago," she admits, the memory of that night flaring bright and lovely in her mind, the image of him mouthing the lines of dialogues in the flickering light of the theater and whispering amusing commentary into her ear every few minutes still tucked away in her mind and eliciting a smile. She had contemplated the idea of loving him even then and a small part of her wishes she could go back to that moment, lean over and thank him for all of it, go back and redo all of it right. "If the timing had been different, it could have been a nice first date, so I thought-"

"You turned it into our second first date," he finishes, an underlying awe lacing through his realization. "Kate, that's not overboard, it's… this is perfect. Thank you."

"No," she argues, braving a glance his way to see Castle's gaze intent on her, conflicted with want and hesitation that has her heart clenching. "Thank you for agreeing to come with me at all, for giving me another chance."

"I love you, Kate," he murmurs and it still makes her breath catch. "As long as you're willing to try, to put in the work for us, I am too."

Oh, she doesn't deserve him, and she knows it, but she's grateful. So grateful to be loved by him.

"More than willing," she agrees, sliding her hand into the open palm he places on the armrest between them, but her fingers stutter over the inside of his wrist when her eye catches the bare state of his left hand.

"You stopped wearing your ring," she breathes out before she can stop the observation from slipping free and the cracks in her heart that had slowly begun to seal immediately break apart, the fissures widening, deepening, and she shouldn't be upset, she has no right to be upset, but… he no longer wears his wedding ring.

"Kate-"

"It's okay." She withdraws her hand and jerks her gaze back towards the movie, attempting to focus on the screen through the blur of irrational tears. It isn't fair of her to express her sorrow, especially not in front of him, not now, but it _hurts_ -

"Kate," he calls again on a sigh this time and she can feel his eyes on her, patient and waiting, but she shakes her head.

"I understand, Castle, really. Let's just-"

"Beckett," he demands this time, snatching her hand back from her lap and pulling it to his chest, where… where his wedding band hangs from a chain around his neck.

Her heart sinks and rejoices at the same time. He's wearing his ring in the same fashion she wore her dead mother's, a comfort and a reminder, an albatross.

"I'm - I'm not gone though," she rasps, coiling her fingers around the wedding band that had been well-hidden beneath his shirt, tracing her thumb over the word engraved along the inside of the white gold band.

 _Always._

"But you were," he argues softly, glancing down to her fingers and sighing at the seal of her palm to his chest, trapping the ring between them. "I lost you and I didn't want to let go so I… stole one of your coping mechanisms?"

 _And this is for the life that I lost._

"Castle," she whispers, chokes, and he covers the hand at his chest, soothes her with the stroke of his thumb back and forth over the path of her knuckles. "I'm so sorry, I'm-"

"I know you are," he assures her, his thumb pausing over her fourth knuckle, sweeping over the matching band that she has been unable to part with. "I know."

It isn't the most comfortable angle, but she lowers her head to his shoulder, lets him keep her hand against his chest, and shifts her stinging eyes to the movie still playing in front of them. Rick deflates beneath her, the waves of tension she had been able to sense dissipating beneath the surface of his skin, and he knots their fingers over his chest, lulls her into relaxation with the thud of his heartbeat beneath her fist.

"I never stopped wearing it," he adds, quieter, his voice so low she has to strain to catch them falling from his lips. "Couldn't."

"Thank you," she mumbles, knowing it's selfish, but she doesn't want him to stop wearing the proof of his commitment to her, his connection to her; she doesn't want him to get over her. To give up on her. "Sorry for ruining the first portion of our date."

Rick waves her off with his free hand. "Made it more interesting. And first portion?"

"Dinner reservations. Wasn't going to take you out and feed you nothing but popcorn and sugar, Castle."

"You're so good to me," he sighs, tugging a ragged laugh from her throat and squeezing her hand. "We're okay, Kate. Finish watching the movie with me."

She nods her head against his shoulder, ignoring the jab of the armrest into her side and inhaling the exquisite scent of his cologne, savoring the warm embrace of his hand around hers. Her lips curl into a smile as he begins to silently echo the lines of movie dialogue.


	4. Chapter 4

Castle hums through the last bite of his lasagna, his eyes fluttering closed as he swallows, and Kate grips her fork a little harder. The candlelight flickering between them casts shadows along his face and dances through the cerulean pools of his irises, bathing them in gold. He's breathtaking and she yearns for the privilege to touch him again, to map his face with her hands and explore his mouth with her tongue.

She really needs to get a hold of herself.

It's not that she has a problem waiting, it's really not, but she has missed him, severely, and it's been just a little over a year and a half since she broke her own rules and showed up on his doorstep for an anniversary dinner that had turned into so much more, since he had shown up on hers during the final hour of Christmas Eve.

 _Castle, go home._

He had shouldered his way inside her tiny apartment and she hadn't tried to stop him, had been unable to even fathom it when he'd lifted her into his arms, carried her the short distance to her bedroom.

 _I'm not spending Christmas without you._

"How did you even get us a reservation here on such late notice?" Rick asks, jerking her free of her daydreams about 'time ins', and she swallows down the last of her pasta, dabs at the corner of her mouth with her napkin.

This had been one of their favorite spots for dinner in the past, the Italian restaurant quant and cozy, a hole in the wall spot that is almost always packed from corner to corner, but Castle had always managed to get them a reservation no matter how busy the place was. Though, from the way he had relished his consumption of the house special, she assumes that he hasn't been here since their last date.

"Ernesto," she shrugs, smirking when his jaw drops. "He was happy to hear that we were coming in after so long."

"You're stealing my connections," he gasps while Kate grins around the rim of her wine glass.

"What's mine is yours, yours is mine," she muses, nudging his foot with the toe of her heel beneath the table, and Castle straightens in his seat despite the laughter lining his lips.

Kate draws her leg back, berating herself for failing to remember that he's still wary of her. Their banter has returned with ease, their conversations flowing without much effort, but she's noticed the strain in the corners of his eyes all evening, any time genuine laughter has flooded from his lips, the tightness that has pinched the edges of his mouth through the few touches they've shared since the incident in the theater. It isn't that he's uncomfortable, no; she thinks it's the opposite.

They can't simply go back to the way they were before she wrecked them both, despite how easy it could be if they just pretended it never happened. But she had never been the only one with walls. Castle had built a door for her to walk through his without protest, happy to have her standing inside the fortress of his heart with him and his family. And now she was on the other side without a key.

"Ready to go?" she asks, pushing back from the table when Castle nods and begins to do the same. She watches him shrug into his coat, reach into his pocket and withdraw his wallet, but Kate stops him with the quiet call of his name. "Already covered."

"At this rate, we may have to go Dutch for our next date," Rick muses and her chest expands at the joke, the welcome humor that breaks the moment of uncertainty.

Kate rolls her eyes in response, notices his confidence return at the familiar exchange, and retrieves her coat from the back of her chair. She turns towards the exit with her arm halfway through the first sleeve, but Castle is stepping up behind her before she can finish, stealing the fabric of her trench coat from her hands and holding it up for her. Like he used to.

Beckett bites her lip and slides both of her arms through the sleeves, allows Rick to settle the material on her shoulders, trailing his fingers up her arms, across her back, freeing her hair from beneath the collar and grazing the skin of her nape in the process.

"Cold?" he asks at her shiver, a hint of amusement to his voice that has her huffing, shooting him a glare over her shoulder that only causes his smirk to grow.

Castle remains close to her side as they make their way out onto the sidewalk once more, the frigid night air sending a true shudder cascading down her spine, but the warmth of him next to her makes it bearable, enjoyable.

"Are you in a hurry to get back?" she murmurs, casting hopeful eyes to him, praying he can't read the yearning that's likely unfurling across her face, leaking into her gaze. She doesn't want to say goodnight, not yet.

Castle meets her eyes, apprehension trickling through his features, and she braces herself for the rejection, reasons with herself that it's only fair. He had given her four years, waited patiently for her to open her eyes and see the truth, realize her heart's true wants; she could give him as much time as he needed.

"No," he answers, certainty coating the single syllable, and she nearly startles at the curl of his fingers around her gloved hand. "Want to walk for a while?"

Kate nods, guided by the tug of his hand into his side, soaking up the heat that radiates from beneath his coat and seeps through hers, warms her blood.

They wander for a while, aimlessly through the city lit streets, walking off the weight of delicious Italian food and stopping for coffee when Castle begins to complain about losing feeling in his fingers. They eventually stroll into the south entrance of Washington Square Park, meandering through the paths and statues towards an empty bench devoid of snow and bathed in golden lamplight. Castle wipes away any residual ice from the surface, plops down with his coffee pulled close to his chest and Kate taking a seat that leaves a respectable distance between them.

"Kate?"

She glances to him as she takes a sip of her coffee, the bitterness bursting across her tongue, reminding her she should have strayed from what had become her usual order, gone back to her beloved vanilla lattes.

"Two things," he murmurs, inching closer to her on the bench until the outside of his thigh is flush with hers, suffusing her with coveted heat once more. "I like our new plan, to remind me why I fell in love with you in the first place." A different, less welcome, form of heat crawls up her throat at that, climbing to caress her ears, and Castle grins at her for it, even though he shouldn't even be able to tell in the darkness. "I like that we're taking our time with this, but I still – I still want to be able to touch you."

As if her cheeks weren't warm enough, her skin is practically flaming now.

"You can touch me," she gets out, attempting to soothe the tension rippling through her system, to force her body to relax beside his. "I think we should take this slow, Castle. As slow as you want, as you need, but that doesn't mean we have to go back to being completely platonic. We're still us."

He sighs, as if in relief, and a laugh bubbles up from her chest while Castle slides an arm around her shoulders, cuddles her into his side.

"I need time," he affirms her words, cupping the rounded bone of her shoulder in his broad palm. "But I missed you, Kate."

She burrows deeper into his one-armed embrace, knocking her forehead into his jaw and breathing past the shards of shrapnel lodged into her lungs, her heart, the dark aching places inside of her where his light used to burn through.

"I missed you too."

Rick smears a kiss to her forehead, a quick whisper of his lips to her skin, but it's enough to spill warmth through every chilled part of her.

"Second thing," he mumbles, propping his chin atop her head and tipping his travel mug against hers. "Since when do you drink your coffee black?"

Kate lowers her eyes to the to go cup in her lap, still half full of the now unappealing black brew, and she shrugs against him, hardly able to feel the cold with the coffee burning in her hand and the cove of Castle's body huddled around hers.

"I tried to make it like you used to," she admits, scratching at the lid with her gloved thumbnail. "But I could never… it was never right. And even if I could have figured it out, it just would have made things worse."

"Worse?"

"Anything that made me think of you made it worse," she confesses on a sigh. "I never stopped missing you, Rick. Not for a single moment while we were apart. I buried myself in the case and sometimes that helped, but not… not like it used to."

She straightens beside him, catching his hand before it can fall away from her arm and squeezing his fingers. His expression is pained when she lifts her eyes, every wound she inflicted since that night she packed her things and walked out the door rising to the surface, dragging down the corners of his mouth.

"I wanted you more than this case, Castle. I'll always want you more than any case," she promises, swears to him, even though he has no reason to believe her. "That's why I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was protecting you and our life together, our future."

"We fight to protect our life, our future, _together_ , Beckett. As a team. That's the entire point of being partners."

"I see that now-"

"How could you not see it then?" he demands, but the question lacks accusation, anger. His words are empty, hollowed out with long harbored hurt.

Her lips part, but nothing comes, anything she had hoped to say lodged thick in her throat.

Castle sighs, dropping his arm from around her shoulders and standing from the bench without her, and the panic of him walking away from her is enough to shove the words up to her lips and out into the air.

"Because you were right," she states, rising after him before he can turn away. "I didn't know how to not be broken and I had to figure that out for myself. It took longer than I would have liked and it caused us both a lot of unnecessary pain, but I know what I want, what's most important to me, and I won't let that change ever again."

"You can't promise me that, Kate."

"No, but I can prove it," she insists, snagging his hands and drawing him in closer, sifting through the flakes of snow that descend from the night sky to fall between them, to search for the hope hiding in the depths of his troubled eyes.

"LockSat felt like a repeat of your mother's case all over again and I can't… I can't be with you if I'm only going to lose you again."

"What can I do?" she murmurs, sweeping her thumbs over his knuckles, holding too tight to his fingers. There is no magical solution to wash away the doubt and distrust, the pain of the last two years that she's instilled within him, but there has to be a way to right her wrongs, to mend her mistakes.

Castle sighs and tears his hands free from the grasp of hers, sends her heart plummeting, until he cradles her trembling shoulders in both of his palms, pulls her in close enough to eradicate the inches of bitter space between them.

"Just keep being you," he tells her, welcoming the careful press of her forehead to his, the frigid kiss of her nose to the tip of his. "Don't disappear on me again. Don't stop… making me fall in love with you again."

The harsh frown lines bracketing his mouth soften with the gentle curve of his smile and her damaged heart exalts, continues to bruise itself against her ribs even as Rick lifts his head away from hers and nods towards the exit to the street.

"Walk me home before we both freeze out here?"

"Yeah," she mumbles around the stupid smile twisting up her lips and bending to grab their coffees from the bench, handing his lukewarm cup back to him while hers is tossed into a trash bin.

* * *

She walks him to the front of his building and he doesn't ask her to come inside. They both know if she came up, this fragile idea of wading back into their relationship would shatter, crushed beneath the wave of her need for him, how he wouldn't tell her no.

"Thank you, for tonight," Castle offers as they linger on the sidewalk, out of the unfamiliar doorman's sight, standing beneath the twinkle of lights decorating the concrete from the buildings all around. "Will you be free again tomorrow?"

Kate feels her shoulders threaten to slump with disappointment and she shakes her head. "Probably not. Today was the first day I've had off in… weeks."

"Ah, almost forgot how busy the life of a police captain can be," he murmurs, the glimmer of pride she recognizes from that first day, the first day of her new career as captain, the last day they spent together without secrets mounting between them, alight in his eyes. "You still have an hour for lunch, right?"

"Sometimes less, but yeah," she hedges, trying not to get her hopes up, but then the idea she had been wishing he would suggest sparks in his eyes, spills from his lips.

"Well, what if we had lunch then? I could call you beforehand and if you've got the time to spare, we'll head to Remy's, if you're swamped, I'll bring Remy's to you."

"That sounds perfect," she murmurs, unable to tamper down the overflow of joy through her insides, even though she should, even though she doesn't want him to feel pressured, rushed. "Only if it's what you want, of course."

His hand comes to the back of her neck, his fingers submerging in the curls of her hair, his thumb grazing that sensitive patch of skin behind her ear, and her eyes flutter closed at the mélange of beautiful sensations.

"You're what I want," he husks against her cheek, searing his words into her skin, leaving her breathless. "Until tomorrow, Kate."

His touch slips away and her eyes slide open to see him drifting backwards, towards the spill of light from the lobby.

She resists the urge to follow after him, to seal a goodnight kiss to his mouth, and lets the wind carry her answer to him. "Til tomorrow."


	5. Chapter 5

The knock on her office door has her gaze lifting from the slew of paperwork, the scent of french fries wafting through her workspace tugging the corners of her mouth into a smile as Castle appears in the doorway.

"First of all, I am appalled by the lack of Christmas decorations out there _and_ in here," he informs her with exaggerated disapproval that has her eyebrows quirking.

"Second?" she hums, gathering her paperwork into neat stacks to return to after lunch.

"I think we have an audience."

Kate follows the tilt of his head to the open blinds and the wide eyes of far too many nosy detectives, including her boys, who were practically scrambling to rise from their desks and make their way towards her office.

"Incoming," Castle chuckles, stepping out of the way while Beckett takes a stand from behind her desk to close the blinds draped over the surrounding windows as Ryan and Esposito come striding through the open doorway.

"Castle, hey," Ryan greets, embracing Rick in one of those brotherly, hand clutching, one-armed hugs that she's often seen him share with Esposito, who divides his attention between her and the two men from the sidelines.

"Yo, Castle," Espo adds once Ryan has pulled back, those baby blues twinkling in a way she hasn't seen in awhile. "Didn't know you were dropping by."

"Just came to bring the captain some lunch," he shrugs, depositing their food on the cleared space of her desk.

"Also here to have lunch, if I remember correctly," she hums, smirking at the trio of eyebrow raises she receives, but while the boys remained surprised, Rick's expression softens for her, approval gleaming in the gorgeous shades of blue his eyes have swirled into.

"That too," he concedes, stepping forward to maneuver one of the chairs around her desk, arranging it next to instead of across from hers.

"Um, are we missing something?" Ryan inquires, studying the two of them with eager curiosity and a hint of skepticism.

"Yeah, since when are you two… back?" Esposito adds with a deep crease in his brow, but Beckett crosses her arms and props her hip against the edge of her desk, narrows her gaze on them both.

"Look, guys, I understand the concern and we both appreciate it, but-"

"It's none of your business," Castle chimes in with an insincere wince that has both Ryan and Esposito puffing with offense.

"We'll talk about it later," she attempts to soothe, walking back around her desk to slip into her office chair, subtly rolling it in closer to Castle's, but the boys are already turning their backs on the two of them, grumbling under their breaths.

"Mom and Dad are back together and we don't hear a word about it?"

"So much for immediate family."

"More like 'immediately only when necessary' family."

The door clicks shut behind them and Castle does little to smother his amusement at the boys' expense, laughing quietly as he withdraws the two burgers and small basket of fries from the takeout bag and splaying them neatly across her desk.

"We're going to have to explain it to them sooner or later, you know," she murmurs, swatting at his bicep in reprimand, but Castle sobers at that, nods his agreement with a sigh and passes her a milkshake. A strawberry milkshake.

Of course he remembers her order by heart, two years apart wouldn't erase that, but it still has her smiling like she had the first time he'd brought her Remy's for dinner while she was working. They had only dined together at the restaurant once prior to that, their first of many unofficial dates.

"We'll have to explain to them, to Alexis and my mother, to the people who matter," he agrees, but her chest grows tight, caught on the mention of his mother, his daughter.

God, Alexis was never going to be okay with this and Beckett really wasn't looking forward to facing his grown up daughter and working to show her all of the reasons why she was good enough for her father all over again. Besides, Alexis knows it just as well as Kate does – she'll never be good enough for him.

"But Kate, we're still figuring this out for ourselves," he reminds her, already so attuned to her, even after years apart, and steadies her uneven breathing with a hand over hers on the desk. "And that's all we need to focus on right now, okay?"

Beckett flips her palm up out of habit, their fingers bumping and knotting, but he doesn't attempt to steal his back. Castle squeezes before he drags the back of her hand to his lips, places a kiss to one of her knuckles that is far too maddening, erotic, for the new pace they've set for their relationship.

"Okay," she acquiesces, twisting her hand in his grasp to hook her thumb beneath his chin. The pad of her thumb strokes along the sensitive skin, grazes over the patches of stubble, and she chews on her bottom lip – the flesh already so raw – at the low hum he releases. "Need a nap too, kitten?"

Rick's eyes flash open, unexpected arousal flushing the amusement clean from his face, and her hand goes still.

"What kind of naps are we talking about?"

"Castle," she groans quietly, tugging her hand free and occupying her fingers with the unwrapping of her burger instead. "Don't tease me."

"Not so much fun to be the one waiting, hmm?"

Her brow arcs and her lips quirk in surprise. They're allowed to joke about this now?

"Oh c'mon, I wasn't that bad."

Rick releases a loud scoff. "Katherine Beckett, you've driven me insane since the day I met you, but that year we spent waiting? A new and dare I say _exquisite_ form of torture."

He pops a fry into his mouth and pillages a few napkins from the bottom of the takeout bag, placing them in a neat stack between their shakes.

"Okay maybe," she admits, deciding not to mention how he hadn't been the only one to suffer under the weight of wanting that year. The attraction between them had always been strong, electric, but rarely had there been a moment since their talk on the swings where she hadn't considered disregarding every word she'd said and diving into a relationship with him that she hadn't yet been ready for. "But this is worse."

"Oh?" he murmurs, nudging the little basket of fries towards her and she plucks one of the golden crisps from the pile, but doesn't make him wait for her answer. He's waited long enough.

"We'd never been together at that point." She traps the fry between her teeth, watches his attention shift from his burger, onto her mouth. "But now, after being with you, so many times, in so many ways, it makes it a lot harder to resist."

"You - you have a point," he concedes, clearing his throat and taking a lengthy sip of his chocolate milkshake. "And for the record, you're not exactly easy to resist either."

Kate chuckles, swallows down her fry and cleanses her palette with a swig of her milkshake. "I think-"

Her reply is interrupted by the short knock on her door and the abrupt entrance that follows. "Hey Captain, I just got the results back for the… Castle?"

Those deep lines carved into her husband's face harden, the color of his eyes shifting into a steely cobalt at the sight of Vikram in her office doorway.

"Hey Vikram," she manages, using the shield of her desk to reach through the space between their seats, curve her hand over Castle's knee in concern. "I know I usually work through lunch, but I had the door closed for a reason."

The tech analyst shrinks under her reproach, but his eyes have hardly moved from Castle and Rick looks so on edge, she almost expects him to snap at the other man. The two had hardly interacted aside from their initial meeting over the case that had snowballed into her investigation of LockSat and a few run ins at the precinct when Castle had refused to stay away, and maybe that connection alone is enough to set him off. But something tells her there's more, has to be more to have Castle looking damn near murderous.

"Sorry, Beckett," Vikram murmurs, waving the manila folder in his grasp like a white flag. "I just thought you might want a look at the vic's phone records."

"You can hand them over to Ryan and Espo," she instructs, tracing circles over Castle's patella, feeling him beginning to loosen at her dismissal.

"Got it, Boss. My apologies for interrupting, I had no idea you and Castle were… reconciling?"

"Not your business," Castle quips, his tone light but biting, a complete contrast to how he had reacted to the boys making similar assessments.

"Okay then," Vikram responds with a false sense of nonchalance. "I'll leave you to it."

Vikram slips back out the door and Kate waits until the quiet click resounds through the room to turn her eyes to Rick, her brow already arching in question.

"I just… don't like him," he grumbles, toying with another fry, but his lips are in a severe frown and Kate rolls her chair in a little closer, studies him until he cracks. "If I were writing this story, he wouldn't be on your side."

"You think… he's playing me?" she asks incredulously, but he doesn't make any move to dispute her. "Castle, he's been here for two years, don't you think that if he had plans of sacrificing me to LockSat or anyone else out to kill me, he would have by now?"

"He could be a plant," Castle muses, but he isn't joking. "I know he encouraged you to stay away from me-"

"Who said-"

"Ryan let it slip one night during a Halo game night at my place. The boys don't trust him either, Beckett, and this may all just be paranoia, but there's something about that guy that I don't buy."

Kate remains silent, staring at him and the deep furrow between his brows, and if it were anyone else telling her this, she wouldn't take them seriously, wouldn't buy their theory. After surviving those 36 hours that started all of this with Vikram at her side, she had grown to harbor a trust and mutual respect for the man, couldn't exactly picture him turning on her, being a plant from LockSat, but… Montgomery had never struck her as a threat either.

"Okay," she breathes out, lifting her hand from his knee to graze her fingertips to the harsh line of his jaw. "If you don't trust him, if your gut's telling you there's something off, then I'll be more careful, keep a better eye on him."

The relief that flows free from his frame surprises her, the rigid tension that had consumed him draining from his bones, and Rick glances up to her with gratitude blooming through his features. She had almost forgotten how much it means to him, to have his opinions acknowledged and respected, to not have his ideas brushed off as silly theories.

"Thank you," he mumbles, catching her hand at his jaw and turning his head to smudge a kiss to her palm. "Like I said, could just be paranoia, or the fact that I never liked the guy to begin with, but I don't - I just want you to be safe."

"Common goal," she mutters, her lips twitching wryly as Castle releases her hand.

"Having each other's back, part of the whole partner's thing, Beckett." His knee nudges her while his head nods towards her hardly touched food. "Now, I'm pretty sure your lunch hour's almost up."

Lighter topics arise throughout their shortened meal, talk of his mother's shaky success and the approaching holiday season humming between them, and by the time her hour is up, their food is gone and Castle is returning his chair back to the opposite side of her desk, preparing to go.

"So when can I see you again?"

The corner of his mouth curls. "Eager, Beckett?"

"Maybe," she mumbles, drifting with him towards the door, stalling his descent. "Missed you, and I have a lot of lost time to make up for."

His entire demeanor changes at the honesty, smug to soft, and she sucks in a shallow breath when he steps in close, brackets her waist with his hands.

"I have a lunch date with Alexis tomorrow, dinner with Mother, but maybe the day after, we could go for a walk or something?" he suggests, his palms spanning over her hips, his thumbs tracing her hipbones through the fabric of her pencil skirt.

"I'd like that," she nods, straightening the collar of his shirt even though it's already in place. "If Ryan and Espo wrap this case by tomorrow and I finish up with meetings early, I could be out of here by five."

Castle squeezes her hips and leans forward, stains a kiss to her forehead. "Perfect. Pick you up here or meet you?"

"Call you," she decides, but it falls from her lips like a hum and Castle mouth spreads into a smile against her skin before he pulls away.

"Talk to you tomorrow then."

"Or tonight?" she tries, the question stumbling free without her permission and Kate purses her lips to stop any more from escaping.

Castle pauses with his hand on the doorknob and she watches his eyes crinkle in the corners, and she's grateful, so grateful it's from smiling again. "Talk to you tonight, Kate."

"Thanks for lunch," she adds as the door opens and he steps out into the bullpen, the fishbowl of detectives glancing up from their desks and murder boards to steal a curious glimpse at the two of them.

"My pleasure."

He throws her one of his charming smiles, not the lopsided grin she loves, but enough to have her smiling back before he starts towards the elevators, sharing a brief handshake with LT and disappearing around the corner.

Kate does her best to ignore the assembly of eyes on her as she retreats back into her office with the imprint of Richard Castle's fingertips branding through the barrier of her clothing and the heat of his lips on her skin still burning. Torture, sweet and definite torture.


	6. Chapter 6

Kate rouses at the vibration of her phone on the nearby table and blinks past the haze of relaxation that had engulfed her in the bath. She hadn't expected the cheap, one bedroom to come with a bathtub, the luxury usually reserved for the more expensive apartments of her past, and this little tub hardly measured up to that marvelous claw foot she had once adored, but it still provided her with the elusive sense of relaxation she could rarely find elsewhere.

It did make her miss the jacuzzi tub in Castle's en suite, though, and the company he could provide. And mm, maybe that's him calling her, she hopes it's him-

Kate forces herself not to frown at the caller ID, chastising herself for even beginning to pout over her father's name on the screen.

"Hey Dad," she answers, easing back into the lukewarm water, careful not to make a sound.

"Katie," her father greets, his voice an octave higher, happier, and her eyes instantly narrow with suspicion. "How are you?"

"I'm good," she hedges. She knows that tone, recognizes the jovial lilt from times he's proven her wrong in an argument or she's done something worth being proud over. She hasn't heard this tone in quiet a long while. "Is everything okay with you, Dad?"

"Me? Oh, I'm fine," Jim Beckett chuckles. "Honestly, I was just calling to say how glad I am that you came to your senses and how proud I am of you for finally choosing to-"

"Wait, Dad, what are you talking about?" she demands, listening to her father go quiet for a moment in hesitation.

"I… you and Rick," Jim replies and Kate's eyes bulge in their sockets. Had Castle called her dad? "Haven't you seen the paper today?"

"The paper?" she echoes, slow horror filling her chest as her father's pride begins to make sense. "I haven't checked the paper."

"There's a photo of you and Rick in Page Six," Jim informs her, as if breaking solemn news. "A little blurb too, raving about how you two are back together."

"Oh no," she groans, sinking low into the water, fully submerged save for her head and the phone in her hand. "Someone must have seen us in the park yesterday."

"Yeah, that seems to be the setting of this photo," her dad confirms, the unfolding sound of newspaper accompanying his voice. "Does this mean you and Rick _aren't_ back together then?"

"No," she protests, too quickly, and she can so easily envision her father's brow hitching with intrigue. "It's just… I called him last week and we met for coffee, talked things out, and now I'm just trying to fix what I broke," Kate confesses, bending her knees and watching her kneecaps breach the surface of the water. "I want to show him that I'm committed first, though, before we put any official terms on it. I hurt him, Dad, badly, and I want - I want to make sure he knows that I'm going to be more careful with his heart this time. So we're together, just not completely. Not yet."

Kate tugs on the corner of her bottom lip at the lack of immediate response. She hadn't expected one, her father always takes the time to examine his words, test them in his head before letting them free, but in this case, the silence is unnerving.

"I'm proud of you, Katie."

Her lip slips free from the vice of her teeth. A multitude of possible responses had arisen in her mind throughout her father's brief prelude of stillness from the other line, but that hadn't been one of them.

"Proud of me? Dad, these last two years have been-"

"A mistake," he supplies for her. "You've admitted as much to me, but the fact that you can do that, see it, and you're willing to put in the work to fix it? That's something to be proud of, sweetheart. I'm sure Rick would agree with me."

Kate sighs and opens her mouth to say more, to argue or to thank him, she isn't yet sure, but her phone begins to buzz, Rick's name appearing on the screen.

"Oh, Dad, Rick's calling in, would you mind if I-"

"Go ahead, Katie. I've said all I needed," her dad assures her and she smile softly, reminds herself to call him back later, arrange a long overdue lunch for the two of them sometime next week.

"Thanks Dad, for everything," she murmurs. "I love you."

"Love you too, honey."

Her dad promptly hangs up and Kate taps the green button before Rick's call can go to voicemail.

"Hey Castle."

"Kate," he sighs, a strange tenor of relief to his voice. "Hey, have you by any chance seen the paper?"

A laugh flutters from her lips and she gives up on furthering her time in the bath, pulling the plug from the drain and getting to her feet, unable to conceal the audible splash of water against the sides of the tub.

"Before you answer that, more important question, are you in a bath right now?"

"I was," she confirms, wrapping her towel around her naked form while Castle groans in mourning from the other line.

"Knew I should have called sooner," he grumbles, but she's glad his call came when it did. Had she answered him while she was still lounging in the tub, listening to his voice resonate through her senses, allowing the richness of his words, the picture of his face, to invade her mind while she had been naked and vulnerable… no, bad idea.

"You were saying about the paper," Beckett prompts, padding into her bedroom and heading for the quant walk-in closet that barely holds most of her wardrobe.

"I assume you've seen it?"

"No, but my dad has," she informs him, chuckling at the groan of embarrassment he releases this time. "I was actually on the phone with him before you called. From his reaction, it must be quite the photo."

"It's… nice," Rick offers and she can hear the sound of rustling on the other line, as if the paper is right in front of him, held in his hands. "You look beautiful."

"What do you look like?" she asks, the question flying out as she rifles through her pajama drawer, tugging one of the t-shirts she stole from his closet to her chest. It still brings her a fraction of the comfort she's been lacking, but it no longer smells like him.

"Happy," Castle replies, soft and so reverent, and her chest clenches with the physical ache of wishing she was there, staring down at that photo with him, tracing her fingertips over the grainy shot of his face, of his happiness. "We both look happy."

"I felt happy," she concedes, propping her shoulder against the closet's entrance. "Can you send me the photo?"

"Sure," he murmurs, a little dazedly and she wonders if he's thinking about their date yesterday too. "Let me just… okay, you should have it in a few seconds."

Her phone hums with confirmation a moment later and Kate draws the screen back from her ear to open the message, view the image.

"Oh, you're right," she breathes out, sweeping her eyes over the photo on her screen, the picture of them strolling through the park while the sun had dipped below the clouds of winter, leaving a lilac sky in its wake.

Yesterday had been… magical. She had managed to clock out of work just after five o'clock like she'd promised and had met him at a coffee shop down the street to avoid providing another spectacle in the precinct. Castle had been tentative, as if it were their first date all over again, but eventually, he's reached for her hand, twined their fingers and fallen into easy conversation with her. They walked for two hours through the city together, playing tourists and admiring the endless beauty and wonder New York had to offer at Christmastime.

In one of the small parks they had roamed through, Kate had leaned into him for warmth as the sun began its descent, relinquishing his hand to loop her arm through his instead, leaning in a fraction closer when his body had failed to stiffen at the innocent contact. And that was how the photographer had captured them, with her arm twined around Rick's, her cheek to his shoulder and his grinning mouth at her ear, teasing a laugh from her lips as he'd told a story about the ice sculpting class he had taken last winter.

"It's kind of frame worthy isn't it?" he muses, and Kate chuckles, but he isn't wrong. They had ended up in the paper a few times throughout the last decade, but none of those photos had captured her heart like this one does. "Much better than these last few times I was in the paper."

Kate's lips curve into a deep frown, the irrational current of jealousy and hurt rolling in to lap at her chest like it had last winter.

He had spent the beginning of the latest new year traveling across the country, touring through the states and cities he had rarely taken the time to branch out to in the past, photos of him in Boston, Houston, Seattle, all filtering into the New York tabloids, the editors praising his embrace of publicity after lying low for so long. Part of her had been proud of him, the part of her that hadn't ached with remorse at the sight of him, the glimpses of his thinning figure and false smiles.

It had been the article of him in Los Angeles with another woman at his side that had pierced straight through the framework of her chest, though, sucked the air from her lungs and lodged itself deep into her heart, a knife that remained there for the following months leading up to December.

 _Richard Castle? Moving on from Nikki Heat with up and coming movie star?_

Castle had still been wearing his wedding ring at the time and the photo had been anything but incriminating, nothing more than a black and white image of him on the streets of Hollywood, outside of a Barnes and Noble, chatting with a brunette beauty who sported a brilliant smile and a hand on his arm. Kate wouldn't have blamed him for moving on, she had given him little reason not to, but she wouldn't deny being beyond relieved when Esposito had caught her staring at the article and casually informed her that after talking with Rick to schedule their next Halo game night, her husband had been furious with the headline.

She had wondered then if letting him go for good, allowing him the opportunity with someone else, someone less broken, was the better choice. She had contemplated calling Martha, inquiring when he would return, showing up at the loft and finally telling him goodbye, setting him free.

But she had known even then, despite all she had done, he wouldn't have let her go.

"You'll save it?" she asks, shivering at the draft through her apartment, caressing her shoulders and back, the water clinging to her skin dried and leaving her flesh chilled.

"Of course. I never told you this, but I sorta saved all of our paparazzi shots," he reveals a little sheepishly, but Kate only smiles.

"I know, Rick. I found the box of newspaper clippings around three years ago."

Castle gasps. "And you never told me? Captain Beckett, I feel so violated."

"I thought it was sweet," she hums, ignoring his dramatics and crossing the distance to sit down on the edge of her bed. "You kept all those mentions of your mom in the New York Times, any time Alexis ended up in the paper for her honorary mentions at Marlowe Prep, and then us-"

"You're ruining my manly image."

"Please, you're a big softy and you know it," she teases, reclining on the bed to lie on her back with his t-shirt still pinned to her chest. "One of the reasons I love you."

"I'm still ruggedly handsome though, you fell in love with that too, right?"

"Mm, of course," she appeases, closing her eyes and allowing the warmth of his voice to wash over her. "Irresistible."

"You falling asleep on me, Beckett? If not, you need to work on the conviction accompanying your reassurances because that sounded weak," he huffs and Kate scoffs, scrubs at her eyes. "I should let you go, though, it's late-"

"Castle?" she calls before he can bid her a goodnight, inhaling a deep breath through her nose at his pause. "Can you stay on for a little while longer?"

"Sure, of course," he murmurs, gentle but sonorous, and she wishes he was lying beside her, that she could curl into him, tuck her head beneath his chin and feel his voice rumble through his chest beneath her ear. "Of course, Kate. Get ready for bed before you pass out. You sound exhausted."

She hums, doesn't deny it, and forces herself up from the bed, unraveling the towel from around her body and maneuvering the t-shirt over her head. She can hear similar sounds from Castle's end of the call while she brushes her teeth, listening to the rush of running water, the rustling noise of what she assumes is a comforter as he crawls into his own bed, their bed.

Kate sighs, slipping beneath her own bedding and adjusting the pillows that make poor substitutes for him.

"All tucked in?" Castle inquires and she nods before remembering he can't see her.

"Yeah," she mumbles, hugging the comforter to her chest. "You going to bed too?"

"Probably not. May write for a little while."

"Nikki?" she wonders aloud, doubtful. Nikki Heat hasn't made an appearance in the last two years, his writing career suffering under the strain of their marriage; she'd be surprised, and oh so relieved, if he hadn't killed Nikki off.

"Actually, yeah," he admits, surprising them both by the sounds of it. "I hadn't been able to write her since we… but now, I'm feeling inspired."

Kate curls her knees in tight to her chest. "Tell me about her and Rook, where their story's going next."

"Asking for a bedtime story?" Castle teases her and the smile spills across her lips even as her eyes struggle to stay open.

"You going to deny me one?"

"Of course not," he scoffs, an underlying hint of affection caressing the words and soothing Kate to sleep as he reviews the conclusion to Driving Heat, brainstorming aloud about Nikki and Rook's next adventure, giving her something to dream about.


	7. Chapter 7

Her body wakes her at six the next morning like clockwork, fifteen minutes before her alarm can resound through the bedroom, but she burrows deeper under the covers, huddles for warmth against the bitter chill of winter and nuzzles Castle's chest as he snuffles in his sleep-

Kate forces her eyes open, almost expecting to see the source of the sound lying beside her, but she's still in her own apartment, the empty side of her bed untouched. And yet Castle's breathing still filters through the room. She shifts onto her back in confusion and the phone falls from the side of her face, dropping onto the pillow beside her head, and clarity sparks through the fog of sleep still clouding brain.

They fell asleep on the phone together. How terribly cheesy.

But alone in her apartment, tucked under her sheets, Beckett lets herself smile at the even pattern of his breathing, the comfort of having the familiar soundtrack accompanying her to bed once more. It's been years since she's fallen asleep on the phone with him, not since those few months of living in DC, and he had teased her mercilessly the next morning about drifting into slumber with the lullaby of his voice in her ear. She would welcome the teasing this time, though, would even concur to the truth of it.

After two years of sleeping alone, every night restless save for the few where she's crashed from exhaustion, forced by her body to sleep deep and dreamlessly, she's certain that the steady cadence of his breath in her ear is the cause for her first full night of rest. And she's thankful for it.

Kate has never been one to linger upon waking, not if Castle isn't around to persuade her back into bed, but she arches her spine in the sheets this morning, flexes her toes and shifts back onto her side with the phone still resting on the pillow. She's awake, no longer at risk of drifting back to sleep, but she closes her eyes, listens to the tranquil sound of Rick breathing peacefully on the other line.

Until her alarm blares to life and startles them both ten minutes later.

"Body?" she hears him mumble in confusion.

"No body," Kate whispers, cradling the phone to her ear as she slips from the sheets and pads into her bathroom. "Go back to sleep, Rick."

"Mmkay, be safe. Love you," he slurs and she grins down into the sink, can already hear him fading back into slumber.

"Love you too."

Beckett draws the phone back from her face, finally disconnects the call after eight hours and thirty-seven minutes. She _really_ isn't looking forward to receiving her phone bill for the month. But it was worth it. Every step of progress they make, every moment she's allowed back towards normalcy with him, is worth any cost.

* * *

Despite the extra sleep she had achieved, Beckett still drags through the morning, as if the more rest she received, the more her body craved. It takes her longer than she would like to read over the recent case reports on her desk, to sign off on each one knowing she's retained every detail, and even though Esposito is kind enough to bring her a coffee from the shop down the street that he and Ryan had stopped by on their way back from a morning fieldtrip, it does little to rouse her.

It's times like these that she misses the streets, the theorizing in front of the murder board with the boys, the constant movement. She has enjoyed her years as captain, has excelled in multiple areas and opened up new avenues of change for the precinct, for the system, but there are days when she is stuck behind her desk, drowning in paperwork, when the fleeting urge to return to her position as a detective rises within her like a tidal wave.

Today was one of those days.

Kate rubs at her temples and rolls her shoulders, tries to focus on the last report in front of her, but just as her eyes adjust to the fine print, a cup of coffee appears on top of the paperwork, and her gaze flies up to see Castle standing on the opposite side of her desk with a small grin.

"I just thought… I haven't brought you coffee in forever and the boys said you were grumpy today." He shrugs and sways a little on the spot, his posture uncertain but his eyes bright. "I had hoped you'd gotten some rest, especially with my voice in your ear, soothing you to sleep."

She laughs, a little too loud and unbridled, but exactly what she needed. He always knew exactly how to nudge her out of her slump in days like this, and she reaches for her coffee with greedy fingers, savors the familiar grip of her travel cup from home back in her hands.

"Oh," she realizes after a swallow of the still hot liquid, the burst of flavors across her tongue almost overwhelming. "You made me coffee."

"I hope you weren't dead set on sticking to black," he chuckles, his brow furrowing with concern at the sudden wave of emotion she can feel flooding through her features. "Kate? What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she murmurs, pushing back from her desk to stand, to meet him on the other side. "Just - thank you."

Castle stares down at her quizzically, but offers her a smile nonetheless.

"Not a problem. Is everything okay?"

He skims his fingertips along her cheek, gliding up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and lingering there. She's growing selfish, impatient despite her best efforts; she had managed to become a hollowed out shell through the years of their separation, and now all of those troublesome emotions she had worked so hard to drain from her system are rushing back in and she's doing a poor job of keeping her head above the sea of them.

"I'm okay," she sighs, ignoring the consequences for just a moment and drifting forward, into him. Her forehead collides with his clavicle, her nose clashing with his chest, and after a breath of hesitation, Castle curls an arm around her back.

It's just like the sleep, she realizes. The more she's allowed, the more she wants.

"Just tired," she lies, soaking in the sensation of his warmth, the scent of his aftershave lifting from his chest to greet her, and the reassuring weight of his arm around her ribs and his hand splayed between her shoulder blades.

"If you're having trouble sleeping, we can talk on the phone like we did last night more often," Rick mumbles, pressing his cheek to her hair, and Kate grins into his chest.

"Thanks, Castle. May take you up on that offer," she decides, raising her head to stare up into the worried shade of blue consuming his eyes. "And if I recall, I wasn't the only one to fall asleep with the phone still pressed to my ear."

Golden flecks of amusement emerge to circle his pupils, illuminate his entire face, and Kate takes a careful step back before she can give in and fit her mouth to his.

"Hey, I was writing and you already know that during the few instances in which I have written in bed, it has been with you sleeping next to me. Your breathing and those cute little noises you make in your sleep create a calming soundtrack."

Beckett rolls her eyes and leans across her desk to retrieve her coffee once more. "So how late did you stay up?"

"I think the last time I checked it was around four," he murmurs, his brow scrunching. "Maybe four-thirty."

"How are you awake and in a pleasant mood?" Kate demands, but Castle looks overjoyed at the question.

"Because I wrote for nearly five hours straight last night, Beckett," he exclaims with glee, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. "I haven't written like that in… way too long."

She bites her lip, but Rick is still beaming with excitement that's contagious, seeping into the air and filtering through her skin, tugging her lips up into a proud grin. He's writing again.

"And while I would love to stay longer, I actually have a meeting with Gina in half an hour-"

"About a new book?" Kate asks, her brow hitching with the assumption, her heart quickening with hope. She wants this for him, wants him to reclaim this beautiful part of his life that drew them together in the first place, that drew her from the depths of her grief all those years ago and sustained her through those long nights of agony.

" _Maybe_ ," he cautions her with a supplicating hand. "Gina has been surprisingly understanding about my lack of inspiration these last couple of years, but Black Pawn will be wary to work with me again. Today is more of a consultation, just to see if there's potential."

"There is," she assures him with confidence, reaching out to give his bicep a quick squeeze. "You're their most successful author, Rick, and more importantly, you're a brilliant writer with plenty of stories left to tell. They'll see that, snatch you back up in a heartbeat."

The nerves flicker in his eyes, but they calm at her certainty and his lips quirk with shy delight. "You think so?"

Beckett nods. "I have no doubts."

"I better go then," he murmurs, the grin on his lips blossoming into a broad smile that he smears to her cheek. "Are you busy tonight? Even if you're off late, you could come over for dinner if you want, and I can fill you in on how it goes."

Her heart palpitates, skips and stutters like a teenager girl who was just asked out on a first date.

"I'd love that," Kate affirms, walking with him out of her office and towards the elevator, ignoring the curious glances that are steadily becoming less frequent.

"And I'll text you beforehand," Castle promises, slowing before they can reach the lift. "Let you know if we're celebrating or drowning my sorrows."

She rolls her eyes, nudges him into the elevator with her hip. "We'll be celebrating."

The doors slide closed on Castle's smile, the brilliant sparkle in his eyes that was appearing more often now, slowly emerging from behind the eclipse of shadows that had claimed his features, and Kate hides her grin in her coffee cup as she strides back towards her office.

"Yo Captain." Esposito intercepts her, signaling her towards his and Ryan's adjoining desks, and Beckett changes her route, comes to a stop at Ryan's chair.

"What is it?" she inquires, catching the look they share, the soft smiles adorning both of their faces. " _What_?"

"We just wanted to congratulate you," Ryan informs her, keeping his voice mercifully low.

"Yeah, we talked to Castle the other night when we were over for Madden and he didn't say much, and we don't know if you guys are official or not-"

"But you're both happier," Ryan finishes for his partner with his kind eyes alight.

"And don't worry, anyone who tries gossiping around here answers to us," Esposito throws in, his chest subtly expanding while Ryan nods his agreement.

"Yeah, they talk trash, they get banned from the espresso machine."

Beckett laughs, wishes they weren't in the middle of the bullpen, wishes that she could embrace them both and express her gratitude for their understanding, their approval and fierce protectiveness, not only for her, but for Castle as well.

"Thank you both," she murmurs, reaching down to pat Ryan's shoulder and offering Esposito a solemn nod. "Once things are sorted, we should all do dinner. Like we used to."

"Jenny would love that," Ryan enthuses. "Sarah Grace and Annabelle would love to see Aunt Kate and Uncle Rick again too."

"Jenny's pregnant again, right?" Espo asks, leaning over his desk to refrain from broadcasting the news. "You want to get in on the pool, Beckett? Boy or girl?"

"Stop making bets on my unborn child, Javi."

"After losing the pool to Lanie about those two," he nods towards Beckett and the travel cup still cradled to her chest. "I have to earn my losses back somehow."

Kate huffs, unsure if Esposito is referring to the bet that had existed since Castle had first shown up in the precinct nearly ten years ago, or if a new one had been concocted since their separation. She turns once the boys begin to bicker, not necessarily wanting to know, and heads back into her office.

For the first time since her promotion, it almost feels normal again, with Castle stopping by the precinct and her chat with the boys. She can almost forget the last two years, the lack of fulfillment that has plagued her career, but Vikram waiting in her office halts the foreign sense of peace from falling over her.

"Vikram, did you need something?" she inquires, brushing past him to take a seat at her desk. Something tells her he is one of the few who has been banned from the espresso machine.

"I think getting back together with Castle is a bad idea."

Kate goes still, her fingers tightening around the cup she places beside her paperwork on the desk, Castle's words ringing like alarm bells through her skull.

 _If I were writing the story, he wouldn't be on your side._

She cuts her gaze to the defiant but nervous man in front of her, staring him down with her best interrogation glare, waiting until he begins to squirm on the spot to speak.

"Why?"

"Look, I have nothing against the guy-"

"Oh? Because now that I think about it, you've been protesting my marriage since you came into the picture," she points out, but Vikram shakes his head.

"No, I wasn't – that was only because you hadn't wanted him to find out about the investigation, I was only following your lead-"

"Well, there's no investigation now, so what's the problem?" she snaps, curling her fingers around her pen to resist the urge to coil her hand into a fist.

"I'm simply concerned that there could be a chance that LockSat is still watching you," Vikram murmurs in a hushed tone. "And if they see you back with Castle, your partner, the guy who helped you bring down Bracken, who boosted your closure rate throughout your years as a detective, they might get ideas, view you as a threat all over again."

Beckett scrapes a hand through her hair, but shuns the thoughts that flood and gather at the gates to her mind, ignores all of those reoccurring images of Rick in danger, ruthlessly murdered by LockSat, that had motivated her to stay away from him for nearly two years.

"Maybe you're right," she concedes. "But I sacrificed two years of my marriage for a lost cause. Rita told me I had to make a choice when all of this started, that I had to choose between Rick and pursuing the investigation. I made the wrong one last time. I won't do that again."

"Captain-"

"If LockSat comes after me, so be it. I appreciate the concern, Vikram, but I'm done allowing someone else to control my life, to keep me away from the one thing I want."

Vikram sighs, but nods his understanding. The prospect of LockSat turning her and those she loves into a target tears her apart piece by piece, but if they come, she'll be ready. And Rick will have her back. It won't come down to it, she won't allow it, but she would rather fight with him, die for him, than spend another day forcing herself to stay away from him.

"I figured you might say that, but I also figured it couldn't hurt to share my thoughts on the matter."

"It may if you don't back off," Kate quips, curving an eyebrow at him in warning, one that Vikram heeds.

"Understood. I actually had another reason for coming in, though. Just wanted to let you know I strengthened the security level on your desktop and I'll scan the station's systems a little more frequently, just to be safe."

Beckett offers him an appreciative nod at that, adds a thin smile as Vikram turns to go. Castle may loathe him, but she thinks with time, and an excessive amount of effort from Vikram, they could learn to have an amicable relationship, reserved solely for the times they managed to end up in the same building.

In the meantime, she would ask the boys to aid her in keeping a closer eye on the tech analyst to ensure Castle's theory isn't actually correct. Her suspicions have risen, despite her doubts remaining high, and if Vikram _is_ a plant from LockSat, she'll kill the man herself.


	8. Chapter 8

Beckett arrives on his doorstep at a quarter past eight later that evening, his favorite brand of red wine in her grasp. He had texted her earlier in the afternoon, but had failed to tell her how the meeting with Gina and a few of Black Pawn's representatives had gone, claiming he wanted it to be a surprise. She already had a feeling she knew what that meant, but either way, wine made both a good celebratory gift and consolation prize.

Kate knocks on the door, tightening her grip on the bottle's neck at the sound of footsteps, but they don't belong to him, the click of heels rising to her ears instead and her nerves riot into an uproar. The door swings open and-

"Katherine! Oh darling!" Martha sings out, opening her arms wide and embracing Kate in a fierce hug, spinning her around in the doorway, and her nerves quickly evaporate, overridden with relief. "I hope you don't mind. Richard told me you two were having dinner tonight and I truly should have called beforehand. I was just leaving actually-"

"No, Martha," Kate protests, lifting a hand to the other woman's arm. "It's wonderful to see you again."

Martha's ice blue eyes soften, melting away some of the enthusiasm, some of the exhaustion as well, to reveal that mixture of fondness and approval that his mother had always reserved for her. She hardly feels deserving of it now, but Martha had been one of the few to know even a facet of the truth, and while that still didn't excuse her actions, it apparently made her a little easier to forgive in Martha's eyes.

"You too, kiddo. Richard told me everything and I'm just so relieved that you two are working things out. Missed seeing a smile on my boy's face," Martha reveals, patting Kate's cheek when she feels her own smile fall. "Don't dally on the past, honey. Focus on the future. Life's too short, remember that."

Martha tugs her into another embrace and Kate sinks into his mother's arms, allows the tension to drain from her frame, and opens her eyes to see Rick standing in the living room, watching them with soft eyes.

"Now, go enjoy your evening and I'll see you soon?" Martha inquires as she pulls away. "Christmas, I'm hoping?"

"Ah, Mother," Castle chimes in and Beckett chuckles, but nods in answer to the first half of Martha's question.

"I'll see you soon, Martha."

His mother slips past Kate, blows a kiss over her shoulder, and saunters down the hall, humming a show tune throughout her walk to the elevator.

"Hey," Rick greets with a grin, taking his mother's place and checking the hall to ensure she's made it inside the elevator before easing the front door shut. He accepts the wine still clutched in her hand with a bright smile and nods towards the kitchen. "Hope you're hungry."

"Starved," she admits, following him into the kitchen, but reaching for his elbow before they can reach the oven and whatever delicious smelling meal he's cooked up. "Are we celebrating?"

She stabs her bottom lip with her teeth at his hesitation, but then his mouth spreads into a slow grin. "They offered me a book deal. Said if all goes well, they'll offer me a larger one in the future."

"Castle." Kate lifts a hand to her mouth to contain her joy, but he's already turning towards her, banding his arms around her waist and hauling her into his chest. She can feel the thrill thrumming through his bones, exuding from every pore of his skin, and she wraps her arms around his neck, presses her smile to his cheek. "Told you we'd be celebrating."

"Thanks for having faith in me," he murmurs into her shoulder, splaying his hands beneath the wings of her shoulder blades, trickling his fingers down the backs of her ribs.

"You make it easy." Kate combs a hand through his hair, caresses the shell of his ear, and pulls back to catch a glimpse of his face before she steps away. "What did you make for dinner?"

He chuckles at her and retrieves two bowls from the top of the stove. "Pasta in that garlic sauce you love with vegetables and pieces of grilled chicken mixed in."

"Have I mentioned how much I missed your cooking?"

"Mm, figured that was the true reason you wanted to win me back," he muses with a shrug, handing her their food while he retrieves two glasses for the wine.

But despite the teasing tone of his voice, the self-deprecating grin doesn't sit well with her. "My reasons for wanting to win you back are kind of endless, Castle."

He blinks at her in response, the grin falling way to the soft surprise parting his lips.

Kate bumps his hip while she hums her amusement. "Table or couch?"

"I - I was thinking couch tonight."

She nods and starts towards the living room, depositing their bowls on the coffee table and taking the glasses Castle holds out to her over the couch. He joins her on the sofa with silverware and napkins, his thigh flush with hers, the normalcy of a night in with him bathing her in contentment.

"You know, Christmas is only two weeks away," Kate murmurs around a forkful of pasta, sweeping her eyes over the bare interior of the loft, the depressing emptiness. "You usually have decorations up the day after Thanksgiving."

Castle frowns at his half empty bowl, swirls the noodles around with his fork. "I don't think I'm going to decorate this year, Kate."

She lowers her food to her lap, the statement somehow managing to crack her heart with ease despite all of the mending it's undergone in this last week and a half.

"But - you always decorate. It's your tradition."

"There hasn't really been anyone to decorate for," he points out, his eyes remaining trained on his dinner. "Alexis spent last Christmas skiing in Colorado with friends and Mother stopped by, but just the two of us… it was nice, but it felt wrong."

"This year will be different," she promises him, not knowing how, only certain that it will be. "C'mon Castle, Christmas is your favorite. You love decorating for it."

"It's too late, I-"

"I'll help," she insists, watching his eyes ripple with surprise. She always helped him decorate in their past years together, but of the four of them, she had been the less active participant, hanging back with Martha while he and Alexis immersed the loft in Christmas cheer. "We'll do it together. It - we'll have fun. And we can even call your mom, Alexis, see if they want to help."

"Alexis is in LA this week, having an early Christmas with her mom," he explains, bending forward to place his bowl on the table. "And Mother has her final slew of shows."

"Then you and me," she shrugs, mimicking him and depositing her bowl next to his on the table, but he's staring at her with disbelief, too much astonishment for her liking. "Look, Rick, I know I've always been… a little unsteady during Christmas time, but since I started spending them with you… you made the holiday feel magical again," she manages, wishing she hadn't relinquished her bowl as her fingers begin to knot together while her throat threatens to close around the words that need out. "You're the only reason I've ever had to believe in magic, Castle. And now, I don't want to give it up."

His large palm drapes over her twisting fingers, tugs on her until she curls into his side, until he can wrap his arms around her and bury his face in her hair. They don't speak, his breath slipping past her ear the only sound, but she places one of her hands to his heart, feels the steady pound of it into her palm.

"We'll decorate," he mumbles, lifting his head to prop his chin atop hers, dropping one of his hands to her knee while the other dances up and down her spine. "Make up for last Christmas."

"And the year before," she adds on a sigh, resting her cheek to his collarbone.

"I don't know, Christmas of 2015 wasn't too bad."

Kate huffs and pinches his side. "Just because we slept together doesn't make it a good Christmas."

"Best Christmas gift you could have given me."

"Shut up."

Castle's chest rumbles with laughter beneath her cheek and she shifts away from him, rests her back to his side and trails her hand over the arm still hooked around her.

"I'll give you something better this year," she mumbles, tilting her head back against his shoulder while his hand travels, his palm settling flat over her stomach, a warm anchor to this moment with him. "We'll have a good Christmas."

"I know we will," he appeases her, stroking his thumb along the edge of her rib. With her stomach full and Castle holding her, she can feel herself startling to drift, feels Rick relax further into the leather cushioning of the sectional. "It's not even Christmas yet, and you've made the season feel pretty magical."

She turns her cheek into the solid rise of his bicep beneath his sweater, thoughtlessly kisses the muscle beneath the fabric. "Are you still writing mystery or are you venturing into the romance genre?"

"Shh, don't ruin the moment," he mutters, but his lips are smiling when they touch the top of her head.

* * *

Kate startles awake, her heart tripping at the lack of surface beneath her, but Castle's voice is in her ear, low and whispering, reassuring.

"Got you, Kate. You're okay," he murmurs, and she trusts him, clutches the fabric beneath her hand below his nape and turns her face back into the warmth of his throat. "Just carrying you to bed."

"Where?" she slurs against his skin, noticing through the slits of her eyes that all of the lights are off, the glow of the city outside his office window the only illumination, and – oh, they're walking into his bedroom.

"Our bed," he answers, slowing once they reach what was once her side of the bed and gently lowering her to the mattress. "You fell asleep with me on the couch and I was just going to let you sleep for a couple of hours, but then I fell asleep, and now it's two a.m. so I think it's best you stay here."

"Too soon?" she mumbles, watching through bleary eyes as he sheds his jeans, tugs on a pair of plaid pajama pants. "I can sleep in the guest room if you-"

"We're just sleeping. Just like we did last night on the phone, only in the same room this time," he explains with a smile that flashes in the darkness. "Do you need to borrow anything?"

"No," she murmurs, even though his clothes would be far more comfortable than the jeans and sweater she changed into after work before coming over. But she's far too tired to manage changing, still balancing on the edge of blissful slumber and sliding her legs beneath the sheets while Castle climbs in on the opposite side of the bed.

Kate nuzzles the pillow beneath her, falls victim to the assault of his scent, of the laundry detergent they used to share, that her clothes have lost the smell of, and her eyes flutter open, find him studying her. And she'll blame her hardly coherent state in the morning, but the sight of him lying only a few inches away in a bed that was once her own has the tears falling before she can stop them.

"I missed you."

"Kate," he whispers, shifting closer, twining an arm around her to cradle her against him as she cries, ashamed but unable to stop. "Shh, I'm right here."

Her body automatically melds to fit the spaces of his – her arm slithering around his torso, one of her knees sliding between his, her head tucking into the cove of his neck. Home, she's home.

"You're home," he affirms, either reading her mind or hearing the revelation drift free from her lips, she doesn't care. "Go back to sleep, Kate."

The lullaby of his breathing, his heartbeat so close to her ear, makes the gentle command easy to follow.

* * *

The next time her eyes peel open, thin strips of sunlight are bleeding into the room, and Castle is still asleep beside her, his chest pressed to her back, his arms curled around her body, and his cheek against the blade of her shoulder.

She almost considers calling in sick to work. The meeting at One Police Plaza flares in the back of her mind, but the thought of sitting at a large table, surrounded by her superiors, attempting to give her full attention, has her mouth twisting with distaste. It's been too long since she's slept in, since she's woken with Castle's warmth draped at her back, their limbs tangled together and the urge to drift back into sleep almost too strong to ignore.

"Thinking too loud." The complaint husked against the top of her vertebrae shoots a shiver down her spine and the hand splayed at her abdomen tugs her back, cuddles her closer. "S'too early."

"Wish it was," she croaks, the passage of her throat raw with sleep, with the residual evidence of tears from only hours before still clogging her trachea.

Kate turns to face him, the voice in her ear and the heat at her back not enough; she needs to see his face, to trace her fingers over the proof of his presence. Castle grunts at the shift of her body and pries his eyes open once her chest is brushing over his and her arm is slithering up his sternum, her fingertips grazing his chin.

His chest rumbles beneath her forearm with a low hum, sending pleasant vibrations through her bones, creating frissons of electricity to twine around her veins. "Missed this view."

Kate's lips split into a grin and she hooks her leg around his knee, curling her toes at his calf muscle without thinking, but Castle doesn't seem to mind, lacing his arm around her waist to slip his hand beneath the hem of her sweater. He strokes the skin of her lower back, caressing the dip of her spine, and her hips yearn to cant forward, the call of his body strong.

"Mm, pretty fond of mine as well," she chuckles, trailing her fingers along the map of his face, over the contour of his cheek, and lingering on the faded scar above his brow before reaching up to brush back the errant strand of hair flopping onto his forehead. "Missed this."

"Snuggling?"

"I'm only admitting it this once, Castle," she mutters, laughing at the nudge of his nose to her cheek, the tender touch of his forehead to hers, and oh, can't she just stay like this?

The blare of her phone sounding its alarm from the living room shouts her answer and Kate buries her fingers in Castle's hair, presses her face into his neck and sighs when his body curls around her, both protective and needy.

"I'm sorry," she mumbles, dusting a kiss to the hollow of his throat and smirking softly at the gentle shudder that spreads from the point of contact. "If I didn't have a full day of meetings, I'd play hooky."

"Next time?" Castle asks as she disentangles from their web of limbs, pushes up on her elbow and pops her spine.

He's joking with her, staring up at her with a waning grin while she sits up, but Kate nods her agreement.

"Next time. We'll build a blanket fort, hole up in here all day," she decides, already able to picture the activity so clearly, noticing the delight blossom in Rick's eyes as he does the same.

Though, she does hope they can hold off on scheduling a date for this idea until they're back together, in every way. Platonically spending hours under the cover of bed sheets with him is endlessly appealing, but her body is already buzzing from their brief morning of innocent touches, snuggles, and she can wait, but she still _wants._

"Saving Christmas, promising me blanket fort dates, you're my ideal woman, Kate Beckett."

She rolls her eyes, bites her tongue to refrain from the dispute already swelling at the back of her throat. Constantly putting his life at risk, doing irrevocable damage to their marriage, causing him continuous heartbreak, was all anything but ideal.

"Go back to sleep, get some rest," Kate murmurs, slipping her legs from beneath the covers, but turning to lean over him before she can place her feet to the floor and race to the phone that is ringing once again from the living room and smudging a kiss to his forehead. "I'll call you after work."

"Look forward to hearing from you," he replies, catching her fingers before she can slip away, giving her digits a gentle squeeze, pulsing more of that maddening electricity, that pleasurable warmth, through her bloodstream.

Kate walks away with her bottom lip pierced between her teeth, resisting the need to turn back around, crawl back into the cocoon of his bed, his body, and holds her breath until she's within the relative safety of the living room. Her phone has gone silent, two missed calls from the precinct flashing across the screen, and she steps into her shoes, shrugs into her coat as she pockets the device.

She'll be a few minutes late to work, may have to rush to make that first meeting, but she wouldn't change it. A lovely dinner on his couch, a night spent in her old bed with Castle wrapped around her, and a morning immersed in his embrace, has done wonders for her mood, wiped away the usual fatigue and awakened her senses better than a strong cup of coffee every could.

It's only been a little over a week and a half, closing in on two weeks since he met her in the café, since she had been certain she would be mailing divorce papers with her signature attached to his lawyer the following morning, and as Kate steps out into the hall of his building, she takes a second to rest her back against the closed door of his loft, to savor the precious bloom of joy in her chest. She's repeatedly told herself in the past that Castle would be better off without her, safer, happier, but it's a lie, and she's finally beginning to believe that. Truly believe it.

They're better together, they _need_ each other, and she won't give him up. Not when fighting for him brings such beautiful victory.


	9. Chapter 9

Kate unfurls the scarf from around her neck once the heating kicks on in her apartment, shimmies her coat from her shoulders as she heads for her bedroom. The impending holidays often caused the rate of homicides to increase, heightened the risk for tragedy to strike, and she had been working for the last two days straight, hardly having any time away from the Twelfth. Hardly having any time with Castle.

Beckett sighs and retrieves her phone from her pocket, feels her lips quirk at the latest message from him. He had stopped by yesterday morning, maneuvered through the frenzy of the homicide floor to bring her coffee, an empathetic smile on his face for her while he waved off all of her apologies. She opens the text message, but doesn't intend to answer, going to his contact information and dialing his number instead.

Today had been a slow day, a sacred lull in the madness, and she had taken the afternoon off. She wants to tell Rick the good news, ask if he has the time to meet her somewhere, if they can spend the rest of the day, the night, together, but as the phone begins to ring, she catches the sound of his ringtone.

Kate pauses on her way to the kitchen, starts towards her front door as the ringing grows louder, and turns the lock, tugs it open to find Castle on the other side, the phone halfway to his ear.

"Oh, hi," he chuckles, sheepishly ending the call before it could begin. "I was just about to call you. I stopped by the precinct, but Espo told me you'd taken off."

Kate winces but steps forward, braces her hands at his biceps when his touch her waist, dusts away the snow clinging to his coat. "That's why I was calling you. I'm assuming you're free?"

Castle presses his laughter to her cheek. "Yeah. But I actually had something specific in mind that we could do."

"Oh?"

"Want to come Christmas shopping with me?"

Her brow hitches, not what she had been expecting, but Beckett nods her agreement, the chance to spend more time with him all too appealing. "Sure, just let me grab my coat."

She leaves him in the open doorway as she meanders through the maze of boxes and back towards her bedroom, snagging the coat she had shed only minutes before from the chair near the entryway and sliding her arms back through.

"You never unpacked any of your things?" Castle asks, the door still open at his back, but he's wandered inside and stands amidst the sea of cardboard boxes, assessing her tiny apartment with disapproval etched deep into the lines of his face.

"I - no," she admits, hooking her purse over her shoulder.

"Makes it kind of hard to have a home," he comments, following her back out the doorway and into the drab hallway.

"It's not my home," she shrugs, turning the key in the lock and leading him towards the stairs at the end of the hall. "Never intended to make it one."

Castle is silent at her back as they descend the stairs, but she refrains from looking back, apprehensive to read the reply in his eyes before he can speak it.

"I noticed you don't have a doorman either, not much security," he adds once they've entered the small lobby area and Beckett purses her lips, pushes open the main door with her shoulder and waits until Castle is standing on the sidewalk in front of her to let the heavy weight swing closed behind her.

"After I moved out of the loft, I stayed in my office at the station for a few weeks," she explains, because she might as well, and Castle's lips part in protest before sealing back into a frown at her glare. "Obviously, I wasn't going to try to get my old place back, so I looked for a new one, a temporary one. The lease is monthly and I thought it would be perfect, that I would only be here for a couple of months at most and then I could just… come home. But, well, two years later..." she trails, shoving her fists into her coat pockets and frowning at the sidewalk.

She startles when he reaches into her pocket, transfers her hand into his and folds his fingers around the frigid bones. Kate stares up at him, the tentative grin spilling across her lips, and even as he keeps his gaze straight ahead, she sees it spread to his lips as well.

"Rent due at the beginning of next month?" Castle inquires, entwining their fingers within the confines of his coat pocket, and the thrill of it unfurls in her chest, suffusing warmth through her bloodstream.

It's not the first time they've held hands since reconciling, but the rush of exhilaration, the surge of familiar comfort, still gets to her every time.

"Yeah, and I-" It takes her a moment to absorb his question, to cut her eyes back to him and see the forced innocence he wears like a mask, the sly quirk to the corner of his mouth contradicting all of it. "Why?"

"Well, this may be presumptuous of me, but we've been on quite a few dates within these last couple of weeks and I think I'm ready to get serious about you," he muses, the laughter bleeding into his eyes. "I may just ask you to move in before the month is over."

"Oh? You don't think that's moving a little too fast?" she plays along, but the smile threatening to breach her lips is giving her away.

"No, I already know you're a sure thing."

"Mm, only for you, baby."

He laughs at that, too loud for the crowded sidewalk, but the sound is glorious to her ears, rich and booming, and Kate sways in close to him, uses the advantage of her heels to smear a kiss to his jaw.

They travel uptown by foot, drifting in and out of multiple stores, finding gifts for Martha with ease. His mother is always a breeze to shop for, her tastes loud and on display, hints of her desired Christmas wishes often strategically left in her wake. Kate and the boys rarely exchange gifts, but Castle ensures that he has their Christmas presents all sorted out, and proceeds to tag along with her to purchase a pricey makeup palette Lanie's been coveting all season.

"We can do a joint gift for your dad," Rick suggests while they wander through Chelsea. "Like we did last year, with the fishing trip?"

"I was going to get him a pass for the Mets' upcoming season," she reveals, flexing her fingers within the hold of his hand, hooking her thumb beneath the edge of his glove. "And maybe that new fishing rod he's been eyeing since last summer."

"Ooh, he told me about that. He'll kill us for spending that much, but we should definitely do both," Castle decides, shooting her a quizzical look when she laughs at him. "What?"

"Nothing, just… I'm glad you and my dad kept in touch. You two have a great friendship and I didn't want my - my actions to influence that."

"Your dad told me every time we talked that you'd eventually come around," he admits, his hand tightening around hers, the light in his eyes still alive but dimmed. "He knew as much as I did about why you'd left me, but he'd tell me that he knew you'd make the right choice, that it may just take time. I believed him for a while, but-"

"I made it easy to lose faith," she finishes for him, swallowing past the sorrow staining her tongue, drenching her mouth in a bitter taste.

Rick sighs, untangles their hands to slip an arm around her shoulders and hugs her to his side on the crowded sidewalk.

"But then you proved him right," he murmurs, maneuvering around a construction zone with her, slowing as they approach the string of boutiques that his daughter favors, the last person on their list to shop for. "I won't lie and say I didn't doubt you, Kate, that I hadn't lost faith in you, but even after I served you with the divorce papers, even when I tried to convince myself that it was really over, I still had hope. Some stubborn, indomitable part of me refused to let you go, to lose what faith I had left."

"Castle," she breathes, her chest growing tight, her scar beginning to throb, and she urges him to the side, free of the human traffic and up against the momentary refuge of one of the shops' bright red brick walls. "You don't have to-"

"No matter what you do, no matter the obstacles that arise or the mistakes either of us make, I'll never be able to give up on us, I can't," he confesses, cupping her elbows in his palms, caressing the sharp juts of bones while she clutches at the lapels of his coat. "There may be no such thing as fate or magic, but you and me? Our story? We're as close as anyone could ever get to either of those things, Beckett. My story will always end with you."

She had sworn to herself when they had begun this journey towards recovery, that he would be the one to make all of the first moves, the choices that influence the speed in which they heal; she had promised herself that even though it would be agonizing, even though she would crave the seal of his mouth on hers, he would be the one to kiss her, to make that decision. But her promise is broken by his words, shattered amidst the slush at their feet as she surges forward, curling her gloved fingers at his neck and capturing the kiss from his lips.

Castle holds her close, tight, and opens his mouth to her, lets her tongue inside, moans ragged and breathless as she works to soothe old wounds, to taste the resolve still lingering within the cavern of heat.

"You've been the best part," she breathes out as the kiss slows, as the fierce grip that guilt and shame, regret and remorse, have held within her stomach for years now finally releases. Rick glides his hand up to her cheek, the warmth of his palm seeping through his glove, and she sucks in another lungful of freezing winter air, lets the ice burn through her chest while the heat of his hand brands through her skin. "The best part of my story."

It's too much for a crowded street of Christmas shoppers and the vibrant holiday displays in every window, too intimate to share with the rest of the world, but Castle kisses her again, gentle and reverent, cradling her face and whispering love against her lips. And her heart is too raw, too tender and vulnerable, for the rapturing intensity of it all.

Her lashes sweep at his cheeks, fluttering like butterfly kisses to his skin, and Castle's thumbs automatically rise to graze beneath her eyes, ready to catch any chance of moisture the moment it falls. Her hope had been to show him that he could fall in love with her all over again, that she could be worth the love and devotion he so generously gave, but she thinks now, standing in the cold with his hands on her face and his breath on her lips, that he managed to make her fall in love all over again, too.

"We're probably putting on quite a show," she mumbles, pressing her lips to the corner of his mouth, tasting the smile that begins to rise beneath hers. "And your daughter still needs a Christmas present."

"You have a point," he acquiesces, retreating from her mouth with a fair dose of hesitation, lowering his hands from her shoulders, but reclaiming her hand, twining their fingers together.

Castle leads her into one of the stores she remembers his daughter was once partial to, checking over his shoulder every few seconds despite the link of their hands, his smile luminescent every time their eyes meet and god, she hopes she isn't glowing quite as brightly as he is over a single kiss. If so, she fears they'll be unbearable to look at once they actually sleep together again.

"Alexis insists she doesn't want anything this year," he informs her, nodding in acknowledgement to the store employees who chirp their greetings. "But she's my daughter and I-"

"Can't resist," Kate chuckles, squeezing his hand and following his lead towards a display of colorful sweaters. "So you're going to try to go small?"

"Well, I already bought her a new laptop since I'd heard her complaining about her current one giving out over the last couple of months," he explains. "Don't give me that look. You know that's tame for me."

Beckett shakes her head, but can't deny the truth of the statement. Castle would buy his daughter the Empire State Building if he knew it would put a genuine smile on Alexis's face, but they both knew his daughter wasn't one for extravagancies. She liked nice, expensive things, just like anyone else, but Kate had witnessed her just as overjoyed by the simplest of gifts, the thought behind always meaning more than the price tag.

"When did Alexis move out?" she asks while they browse through the boutique.

"Not long after you did," Castle admits, releasing her fingers to sift with her through the racks of expensive clothing, designer brands and high quality fabrics. "I knew she hadn't planned to stay forever, but I think my nonstop brooding made the idea of having her own place more appealing."

"I doubt it was an easy decision," she murmurs, trying to not to focus on his mention of brooding, the reason behind it. "Is she far from the loft?"

Rick shakes his head while she dusts her fingers over a royal blue sweater that she could picture Alexis wearing - the rich color a perfect contrast to her porcelain skin, her fiery hair, bringing out the bitter ice Kate can already envision consuming her eyes the moment they're face to face.

"She's actually closer to the office now, which is more convenient since she practically runs the business. She found a nice one bedroom in Tribeca that kind of reminds me of your old place," he muses, grazing his knuckles along the back of her hand. "She doesn't hate you, Kate."

Beckett's fingers fist in the cashmere fabric and he sighs, steals her hand away before she can wrinkle the material beyond repair.

"It took me a long time to earn her trust," she reminds him, staring down at their clasped hands. "To give her reasons _not_ to hate me."

"She was a teenager then, young and a little selfish," Castle reasons, touching gentle fingers to her jaw when her head begins to shake, ready to protest. "If anything, I think Alexis misses you."

"Castle-"

"No, hear me out," he murmurs, his fingertips still kissing her skin, infusing warmth into her brittle bones. "It may have taken her awhile to trust you, but once she did… you became family to her, Kate. And I'm sure you've noticed by now, but once Alexis deems someone family, she'll go to any lengths necessary to protect them. She did when you were missing for those 36 hours, when the… investigation started."

Beckett cuts her eyes to him in surprise, this information news to her. Alexis had shown no signs of disapproval upon her initial return from that hellish experience that had only been the beginning of a personal purgatory for them all, but she had imagined his daughter wasn't happy with her for managing to disappear once again. The idea of Alexis defending her had never even crossed her mind back then.

But it didn't matter much now; his daughter certainly wouldn't be defending her this time.

"She may be hurt," Castle continues. "And yeah, maybe a little angry too, but no one in this family just stopped loving you."

Kate shudders out a breath, grateful for his embrace when she turns into him, burying her face in his neck and banding her arms around his waist.

"I missed our family," she sighs out against his throat, the relentless burn of tears in her eyes blurring her vision of the twinkling Christmas lights overhead and the concerned employee watching them from the counter.

"You're done missing us," he murmurs into her hair, soothing but fierce, his arms tight and secure as they wrap around her shoulders. "We're done missing you."

"You are," she confirms, adding a determined nod to the statement as she lifts her head, meets his glittering eyes with a watery smile. "I love you."

Castle brushes the tear tracks she had failed to notice from her cheeks, traces the curve of her lips, and she wishes so badly for him to kiss her again. The taste of his mouth, the seamless fit of his lips to hers has been nothing more than a memory for the majority of the last two years, a near tangible daydream these last two weeks, a blissful reality only moments before, but he waited four years for her to be ready. She can give him longer than a couple of weeks to push for more.

"I love you too," he whispers, so earnest and beautiful as he presses a kiss to her forehead. Not quite where she had hoped for his lips to touch, but it's enough. More than enough. "Now, let's finish up in here so we can go back home and decorate."

Castle smiles at her and takes her hands, guides her towards another carousel of clothing, and she doesn't think he's realized it, but aside from that night in his bed last week, this is the first time he's referred to the loft as 'home' since they had reunited and he had spoken of selling it instead.

"You never said anything about decorating the loft today," she points out, but Rick only shrugs and plucks an emerald green sweater dress from the rack that Kate twists her lips at in disapproval. "Alexis doesn't like that shade of green, washes her out."

Castle returns the dress to its place and steps aside to allow her a glimpse at their options. "I know I didn't mention it, but I was going to ask, so would you like to come over - if we ever find my daughter the perfect gift - and help me decorate the loft for my favorite holiday that I can't wait for you to spend with us this year?"

Kate's fingers freeze over a dusty pink blouse, her gaze tripping up to find him watching her, his hope subdued and dull, his expression far too serious for a statement that has her heart fluttering, the broken wings flapping with fervor, ready to take flight.

"You want me to spend Christmas with you?" she echoes, but it's his brow that knits with bewilderment.

"We talked about this, remember? The other night on the couch-"

"Yes, but I just… wasn't sure if you actually wanted me there, especially with Alexis and Martha coming or if you just-"

"Kate, all I've wanted for Christmas-" He huffs, scrapes a hand through his hair, struggling with the admission fighting to be free. "Last year was the worst Christmas of my entire life." His confession, the raw anguish in his eyes, rips through her, shreds what's left of her devastated heart. It's a miracle the damn thing even functions anymore. "My daughter was across the country, my mother spent the entire time worrying over me, and you - you were all I wanted the entire time and that hasn't changed. If possible, I just want you more."

"You're making it really hard not to kiss you again in the middle of this store," she murmurs, covering her lips with the tips of her fingers as he breathes a laugh at her expense, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and she reaches up to dust her fingers to the spot, capture his happiness in the whorls of her fingertips.

"Restrain yourself for now," he mumbles, the hints of fatigue brought on by memories of last Christmas fading beneath his crooked grin, making that task no less difficult. "I'm sure we'll end up under some mistletoe before the day's over, if you're coming to decorate, that is…"

Kate rolls her eyes and steps away from him to focus on finding Alexis's gift so they can go home.

"You already know I'm coming, Castle."


	10. Chapter 10

She collapses onto the couch once the tree is finally up, secured in the tree stand, and no longer at risk of falling. They had been decorating the loft since the early evening, taking his car service to the storage unit he had transferred all of the decorations into after their final Christmas together, and loaded the trunk with as much as they could carry. But they had been missing the most necessary piece of Christmas décor, and Kate had requested a drive to the nearest tree farm to peruse what was left of the pines and evergreens until they found one that was suitable for his living room.

Castle plops down to the floor at her feet, dropping his head back against her knees, still trying to catch his breath. They should have gone with a tiny, Charlie Brown style Christmas tree this year.

"Next year, we're buying a tree, pre-lit from the store and all," he wheezes, wiping the sap from his fingers onto his jeans. "Or having one delivered, something."

"Oh, don't pretend you didn't enjoy every second of getting that thing up here," Kate huffs, staring up at the beast of a tree in the middle of the room, magnificent and worth the struggle. She couldn't remember the last time she had heard him laugh so much, the booming melody of his joy resounding through the halls, echoing through the elevator when he had ended up pinned against the wall beside her through the ride up to his floor, the tree taking up all the space.

"Decorating it is going to be fun," Castle chuckles, coiling his fingers around her ankle, nudging her sock out of the way as he circles the bone with his thumb. "But we'll save that for tomorrow."

"We can still do a little more around the loft," she murmurs, casting her gaze over the walls now adorned with glittering paper snowflakes, towards the stairs where garland twines through the railing, twinkling with Christmas lights, and over to the wreathes that shine red and gold hanging in every window. They've made a lot of progress in six hours.

Rick tilts his head back against her knees, his brow arching, upside down and eliciting another gentle bubble of laughter from her chest. "It's almost midnight. But we can do the garland in the doorway to my office if you're that eager."

His brow waggles and Kate nudges him up with her knees, accepts the sticky offering of his fingers to tug her from the sofa. Castle washes his hands in the kitchen while she unravels the long strip of foliage interweaved with Christmas lights, begins to line the entry to his office with the garland, allowing Castle to assist her with the hooks atop the frame, along the bookshelves.

"Crooked?" he murmurs while Kate steps back, inspects their handiwork.

"Looks even," she assesses, noticing Castle still fiddling with the middle section of the thick strip of greenery. "Is it not staying?"

"It'll stay, there's just this piece that's out of place," he mutters, shifting to the side when Kate moves in to take a look, her eyes widening with surprise before her lips part with amusement.

Mistletoe.

Castle drops his hands from the struggle he had staged, the green leaves dangling perfectly from their bright red ribbon in the doorway above them.

"Told you we'd manage to find our way beneath some mistletoe before the night was over."

"You going to follow tradition?" she challenges, crossing her arms over her chest, quirking an eyebrow as he drifts in slowly, waits until the broad wall of his chest is brushing at her folded forearms and he can tower over her without her heels giving her the advantage in height.

Kate flicks her eyes from his darkening gaze to his mouth, attempts to maintain a neutral expression through the burn of him so close, purposely building anticipation. His hands ascend to cup her jaw, the throb of her pulse rioting beneath his fingers, and she unfurls her arms to brace her palms at his chest, curl her fingers in the fabric of his sweater and pull herself in closer.

She arches on her toes, rolls forward like a wave to lap gently at his body, caressing, much like she had that first night, soaked to the bone and wanting in his doorway. The tip of her nose encounters his in a kiss before she's settling back to the soles of her socked feet, studying the glints of light like stars in the night skies of his pupils, the rich darkness all consuming, welcoming.

"You smell like a Christmas tree," he mumbles, skirting his thumb along the hollow of her cheek and her lips begin to curve, but Castle is slanting his mouth over her smile before it can bloom, the petals of her lips blossoming open for him instead.

She gasps as his hips press her back against the frame of the door, his thigh slotting between hers while his tongue plunders, his teeth nipping at her bottom lip and jerking her spine into a bow. Her fingers clutch in the v-shaped neck of his sweater, climbing to band her arms around his neck, to hold on through the questing of his lips along her jaw, the branding of his tongue, his teeth, to the sensitive patch of taut flesh where her throat meets her clavicle.

"You smell like home," she breathes, the words harsh and stuttering against his ear when his nose nudges the fabric of her blouse out of the way, his lips tracing a path along the sharp line of her shoulder.

"Stay with me tonight, Kate."

Her fingers knot in his hair and he lifts to return his forehead to the resting place of hers, the pant of his breath coating her lips as his chest presses against her sternum, allows her to feel the thrashing of his heart. She knows that despite the request, he means more than just a night; he means forever. Richard Castle deserves a forever, needs the promise of it, the proof, and her head tilts with her nod of an answer. She can prove that she knows the meaning of the word that has become so dear to them both. She can still be his always.

"Come home," he remedies, stroking the shell of her ear, skimming the side of her neck. She searches his eyes for uncertainty, for residual doubt, but his entire face is alight with love that steals her breath, slices straight through her chest. "Just come back home."

"Yes." She surges up to smear another kiss to his mouth, trading breaths with him, and tries to contain the desperation rattling around in her chest, the moan swelling thick and urgent in the back of her throat. He wants her to come home. "Please."

Castle pulls her from the wall of the bookshelf at her back, leads her into the bedroom without unwinding his arms from around her body, his lips relentless in their wild and ruthless descent onto hers, swallowing whatever breath she had left. His hands slide beneath her sweater, splay and travel over her skin, creating wildfire in his wake, and she wants to ease the fabric from her body, allow him better access, but she can't stop kissing him.

Her body writhes, alive and needful, stumbling with him towards the bed, and she fails to stop the moan, has to gasp past the overwhelming pound of her heart, battering itself against her ribs, once her upper body is nearly bare and Castle is staring in quiet awe at the fill of her half naked in his arms. His thumb skims the underlining black lace of her bra, his mouth dusts the slope of her breast, and Kate snags the hand at her waist, guides his fingers to the clasp at her back.

The lingerie falls and she doesn't hesitate in pressing her bare chest to him, choking on something far too close to a sob when his hands cradle her there, holding her like something precious as she stains her lips to his throat. The faint impression of how much he wants her strains between them, but he doesn't rush, allows her the unhurried worshipping of her mouth at his throat, traveling to seek forgiveness at the altar of his mouth.

"I want to show you," she breathes, the part of his lips beneath hers like a confessional, open for her sins, her sanctity, and sinks down to his lap when he descends to the edge of the bed.

Kate eases the sweater over his head, allows it to drop to the pile with his belt, and savors the contact of his chest bare and radiating heat beneath her hands. She wants him, her yearning a current strong enough to sweep her into the undertow, but it's been years, just short of two long years, and she wants to do this right, to drape her body atop his, give him back every piece, take back all she's been without.

"Show me?" he echoes, gliding his palms down the canvas of her back, painting over her skin to clutch the narrow ridges of her hips.

"How I missed you." His eyes burn, blue flames amidst the darkness, accents of gold lighting the night, and he skates his hand up her spine, the heat of his palm licking at her nape before his fingers curl in the hair at the back of her skull. Castle angles her closer, their lips brushing, brimming with promise, and she breathes the words into the sanctuary of his mouth. "How I love you."

* * *

She ignores the calls of sleep, refuses the embrace of slumber in favor of his. Kate tilts into the trickle of his fingers at her cheek, awareness rushing back as her chest expands with a deep breath to fill her lungs.

"Better than you remembered?" Castle hums from above her, tracing patterns over her stomach, coasting north to outline the ghost of an incision scar, higher to the less familiar, jagged line of a bullet's graze that had been poorly treated.

"Amazing," she agrees, dipping her hand into the pool of moonlight leaking in through the window to drip along the column of his throat and drawing him down from the support of his elbow to taste the starlight on his lips. "Always amazing."

"You have to be up in three hours," he mumbles, combing the errant strands of hair back from her forehead. "Unless you intend to play hooky and build that blanket fort with me."

Her fingers dance up his sides, a low, unintentionally seductive chuckle rising up to her lips as Rick squirms away to lie beside her instead, dragging her loose limbs and pliable muscles along with him.

"I want to decorate the tree," she sighs out against his throat, feeling his heart trading beats with hers, the damp skin of his chest grazing hers with each breath.

After so long apart, they had been thorough, voracious, and her blood sings with pleasure beneath her cooling flesh, rejoices with the reward of repentance.

"Is that a yes to playing hooky?" Castle gasps, still tangling his hands in her hair, undoing the damage of his fingers, and she tilts her head back against the crook of his elbow.

"I could miss a day," she mumbles, strumming the chords of his ribs like strings of an instrument, relishing in the beautiful intimacy of sharing breath and heat and heartbeats. "Work a little extra these next few days to make up for it, then take off for Christmas."

Rick beams, tentative joy streaming through the lines running like channels through the map of his face. "Yeah?"

"I haven't taken Christmas off since the last one we spent together. There's always work to be done, but it's not necessary that I be there," she explains, tracing the parenthesis around his mouth. "Not needed as much as I was when I was a detective."

"They still need you," Castle refutes. "You hold the place together, Beckett."

His hands soothing over the sharp wings of her shoulder blades ease the rounded bones from their hunched position, a defensive posture she hadn't even realized her body had adopted. "I just don't know if it's where I belong anymore," she confesses the fear she's been too afraid to voice to herself, closes her eyes as it spills onto the sheets beneath them.

"Are you happy?"

Her gaze lifts to him, so close their lashes thread together, and she hasn't been happy in so long, the automatic _no_ already dances on the tip of her tongue. And she may not be content in her work these days, the unwelcome uncertainties that she recognizes from years past stirring in her chest, but maybe in repairing the wreckage of her personal life, her professional life could renovated as well.

And if not… she would figure it out. They could figure it out. Just as they had before.

"Yes," she whispers, knowing he had been referring to her job, but she's lost in this moment, blissfully immersed in the perfect alignment of his body alongside hers, the hope for a future she thought had been sacrificed, self-sabotaged, swirling in her chest. "I'm happy."

Her body is exhausted, too tender and aching, but she twines her fingers through his hair, brings his mouth down to hers in a kiss that leads to nowhere but offers him everything. Castle sighs, draws a palm down her spine as he eases onto his back, lets her sink, molten and heavy, into the cradle of his body beneath hers.

"M'happy too," he mumbles, pulling the sheet up from their waists to drape across their bodies as they drift, a languorous grin claiming his lips. "And you love me."

"Yeah, Castle." Kate nuzzles his throat, finding comfort in the cove of his neck and pressing one last kiss to the hinge of his jaw before her lashes dust over his skin a final time. Like this, happiness was more tangible than it had ever been before. "I love you."


	11. Chapter 11

Castle accompanies her back to her apartment after she calls into work from his bed, apologizing for the late notice, but earning the day without much protest from the commissioner. He had made pancakes during her phone call, created her a plate with fruit forming a smile and a cup of coffee steaming on the breakfast bar. If her body hadn't been so ravenous with hunger, she would have dragged him back to bed.

She had stepped up behind him in the kitchen instead, pressed her mouth to his bare shoulder and sealed her gratitude into his skin.

"Should I pack a bag?" Kate asks, knowing he's not far behind as she strides into her bedroom. He had asked her to come home last night, but she's unsure if the words had been a request to move back in right away, or if he preferred a gradual process, akin to how she had come to live with him during their engagement.

She drifts inside her closet, closes her fingers around the strap of a duffel bag, but Castle steps in beside her, reaches down for the larger suitcase tucked beneath the rows of clothes instead.

"For now," he replies, rolling the luggage out into the cramped space of her closet. "Until we can move everything back, if you actually want to move back in, that is. We can wait until after Christmas since the loft is packed with the decorations and the tree and-"

"If I want to move back in?" she echoes, snagging the edge of his jacket and tugging herself into him. "It's not even a question, Rick."

The corners of his lips twitch upwards, the hints of hesitation evaporating beneath the beginnings of a smile. "Didn't want to be too presumptuous."

"When it comes to this, you can be," she murmurs, a little too vehement in her insistence, but she's given him so much reason to doubt her; she doesn't want him doubting this. "Wherever you are… that's where I want to be."

The broad width of his shoulders rustles her blouses, her coats, as he nudges the suitcase out of his way and comes for her, enveloping her body in his arms and burying his face in her neck. They stand that way, in the narrow entryway to her closet with Castle's arms secure around her torso, his breathing rough against her throat, long enough to have concern swirling through her chest.

"I'll start packing," Kate mumbles, brushing a kiss to his temple and sliding her hands down from the rounded bones of his shoulders to soothe the tense muscles of his biceps. She squeezes the subtle bulge, far more solid than she had remembered. "Have you been working out?"

A startled laugh whisks through her hair, but oh, there - his muscle flexes beneath her fingers, the strength swelling under her touch.

"I'm a little offended that you didn't notice until now," Castle scoffs, drawing back to meet her eyes with a smirk teasing along his lips.

"Oh, I noticed last night." She arches on the toes of her boots to nip at the smug curve of his mouth, catching his bottom lip between her teeth and bracing her hands at his chest, spanning her fingers out to appreciate the sturdy wall of his sternum, the firm pectorals, beneath her palms. "Shaping up, Castle?"

His chest rumbles with amusement, the cool tip of his nose pressing to her cheek before she can drop back to the soles of her shoes.

"Had a lot of time on my hands," he muses, diverting his eyes from her, allowing his gaze to roam the crammed racks of her clothing instead. "I had this stupid idea that if I was physically stronger, I could do a better job of protecting you. Are those my shirts?"

Rick shuffles past her, soft delight shimmering in his eyes as he finds her stash of his t-shirts, a button up she had always favored, and even a pair of his boxers that she'd taken to using for pajama shorts.

"You left me one of your shirts," he recalls, dusting his fingers over the faded superhero t-shirt folded atop the small stack. "The ratty NYPD one you always wore, your favorite."

"Because I'd planned to come back for it," she informs him, finally gaining the return of his attention. "And your physicality had nothing to do with why I left, you know that."

"Yeah, but really, Beckett, I was an unreliable partner. You needed someone who could have your back, not another civilian to look out for, and I-"

"Stop it," she hisses, surprising them both with the hot burst of indignation flaring through the two syllables, but to hear him degrade his importance to her, to devalue his place in their partnership, slices her chest wide open, has all of her healing wounds vulnerable and aching. "You have always had my back. Don't you dare try to sell yourself short."

"Why? You obviously did," he mutters back at her, dropping his hand to his side.

"You think I didn't trust you with my safety?" she demands, advancing on him in the confined space, trapping him against her shoe rack. "That I thought you wouldn't have my back?"

"Not enough to tell me the truth," he growls, glowering at her. "You thought you were protecting me by keeping me in the dark about LockSat, I get it, but if I was better at defending myself, then maybe you wouldn't have felt the need to."

"Do you hear yourself?" she snaps, exasperated, scraping a hand through her hair. "Rick, it had nothing to do with your strength or your capability to defend yourself, to defend me. You'd already proven to me, time and time again, how capable you are of handling yourself in bad situations."

"Then there was no reason for you to-"

"Do you remember what Smith said to me a few years ago?" Beckett murmurs before this conversation can advance any further, watching his brow knit with the question. "When we met him in that parking lot while we were on the run, right before we arrested Bracken?"

Concentration tugs his brow down further, fills his eyes with the frantic search through his memories, but Kate saves him the trouble.

"He said I was radioactive, that I couldn't even help myself, let alone anyone else," she recites, the words that had stung and then stayed during their brief meeting with Smith in the shadows of a parking garage. "And he was right. Just being with me puts your life at risk."

"Fuck what Smith said," Castle growls, confidence climbing his spine, settling in his shoulders. "You're not radioactive, Kate. Never once have you stood down when you know there's been a blatant act of injustice, you fight for the truth, and it's one of the reasons I fell in love with you in the first place."

She squares her jaw to maintain her ever-wavering composure, grits her teeth when he snags one of her hands, brushes his thumb over the band of her wedding ring.

"But I promised to stand with you, to fight every battle at your side, not hang back while you do all the work. You have a problem, I have a problem, that's how this goes," he reminds her, coaxing her deeper into the closet, to him, by the thread of their fingers. "You're not poison, Kate Beckett, you… you don't let go, you never back down, that's who you are, and it's what makes you extraordinary."

"Rick," she chokes, the flash of memory so bright, the echo of those words so strong, she can barely breathe past it.

"And I'm proud of who you are. Proud to call you my wife, my partner-"

"Partners," Kate picks up, tightening the tangle of their fingers and holding onto the intense burn of his gaze. "No more going rogue, Castle. I promise."

Rick's arm winds around her shoulders, hugs her to his chest and rubs her back when her breath leaves her lips in trembles. So many who have come into contact with her have suffered, fallen victim to the radioactive venom she seems to exude with every breath, but Castle had always been immune to her toxicity. There had been close calls, so many close calls, but his heart still beat beneath her ear, his lungs still expanded with oxygen. And even if he was wrong, even if she was a rare form of poison, perhaps Castle could be her antidote.

* * *

The wheels of her suitcase rumble along the hardwood floors and Kate parks the luggage beside the door, still needing to go back for the extra overnight bag she had filled, but her eye catches on Castle in the petite eating area just off from the stove and the fridge. The place had become a decent hideaway, but she wouldn't miss the depressing grey walls, the appliances that sometimes gave out on her and the maintenance man who rarely replied to her requests for assistance; she wouldn't miss the lack of space or the underwhelming view of the brick wall outside her windows. She hated this apartment, hated every moment she spent self-imprisoned inside of it, and she can't wait to leave.

She abandons her suitcase and moves to join Rick at her pitiful kitchen table, hunched over the excuse for a dining space, studying. He doesn't acknowledge her presence as she peers over his shoulder, unable to recall what she could have left on the table that would garner such intrigue.

"What're you reading?" The question is already past her lips before her eyes can follow his gaze, register on the papers she had left splayed across the cheap dining table the night she had called him over two weeks ago now. The divorce papers. "Castle."

He lifts the papers from the table, stacks the thin sheets together neatly, and then rips them in two.

"Rick-"

"No, there's no need for them anymore," he protests, allowing the shreds to slip from his fingers, float to the floor. "There was never any need for them in the first place."

They had spent their first wedding anniversary apart, technically, and then the second too. He had served her with the divorce papers before they could reach a third, and she had ended up smearing the ink with her pitiful tears. Divorce had never even been an option and she had slammed the door on the idea any time it had attempted to enter her mind. Never once had she wanted to divorce the love of her life, but she had made him wait four years prior to all of this, she couldn't be upset when he had refused to wait for a second time around.

"Yes, there was," she argues, watching his eyes widen with horror, and Kate quickly grabs hold of his elbows, tugs his body forward before he can step back.

For the first couple of months, they had kept an odd, sometimes platonic and sometimes not, marriage in tact. Twenty months spent in a sublet had followed, in an uncomfortable bed without her husband by her side, scattered with strained phone calls and painful run-ins at the precinct, until their communications tapered off into nothing but silence.

Until those divorce papers arrived with her mail. Silence was no longer an option after that.

"Those papers forced me to make a move. It took me awhile, longer than it should have, but they forced me to stop being a coward, to call you that night and ask you to meet me. Allowing me as much time as you did was merciful, Rick, and I'm grateful I won't have to sign away our marriage, but some good did come of those documents."

"I hate that the idea of divorcing you was ever documented," he sighs, glancing down to the torn legal papers with a frown carved deep into his mouth. "I couldn't even read them over, it made me sick-"

"We're not getting a divorce," she whispers, because they both need to hear it. "We're not separated. I'm with you. I love you and I'm not going anywhere."

"No," he agrees, glancing over her shoulder to the suitcases near the exit. "Except home."

The darkness recedes, the idiotic grin claims his lips and rising to infect his eyes with light, and Kate digs her fingertips into his elbows to lead him towards the waiting luggage.

"Yeah, and I'm ready, so you can take the first suitcase down and I'll bring the rest."

"Why do I get the heavy one?" he whines, putting on a show as he assesses the hefty black travel case with disdain. "I'll throw my back out trying to get that thing down the stairs."

She releases his arms, dusts her hands down his sides to graze his backside instead. "I'll give you a massage later."

His adam's apple bobs and Rick reaches past her for the suitcase, extending the handle and bumping the front door open with his hip, making a production of hauling it down the hallway with a great deal of effort. She bites her lip to conceal the chuckle as she hears him thumping his way down the stairs.

* * *

Her bags are in his bedroom, most of her clothes back in place in his closet, her makeup on the en suite's vanity, her bath products in the shower. It's been a day and she's practically moved back into the loft.

"Kate," he calls from the living room and she straightens from her position in the bathroom doorway, shaking free of her assessment of their bedroom, appreciating the sight of all of her things back where they belong.

The smell of popcorn is in the air, the sounds of Sinatra filling her ears, growing louder as she starts for the living room, a grin lacing along her lips. Castle had unboxed Christmas decorations while she had unpacked, swearing he wouldn't start without her, even though she wouldn't mind. Nothing has gone back to the way it used to be, but they've managed to find a new way home, to rekindle the fire that had never gone out, and it has a sense of magic, stronger than the kind Christmas can bring, sprinkling through her veins.

Their life together is different than it had been before, but she's beginning to believe that now, it may have the potential to be even better.

"Have I mentioned that we're getting a pre-lit tree next year?" Castle grumbles from the top of a stepladder as she comes through his office doorway to find him balancing near the top of their Christmas tree, half of the massive cord of lights wound through the branches, the rest tangled around him.

"Yes, but you're doing quite the impressive job on your own," she muses, earning a glare through the array of pine needles. "If you would have waited, I'd have helped you."

"I wanted to spare you," he huffs, creating another lap of lights around the circumference of limbs. They'll have to go back, straighten the winding path of cords once he's done, but he's making steady progress, already halfway finished. "There's cocoa on the counter, and popcorn."

"I know," she chuckles, heading for the beverage still steaming with warmth. "Did you use Alexis's secret recipe?"

"Maybe," he admits between grunts of effort. "I may have also added my own personal touches."

Kate sips at her hot chocolate, appreciating the hint of cinnamon, and works to properly arrange the toy train set that makes him light up like a little boy. It whistles with her success, journeying on its railroad tracks around the perimeter of the table behind the couch, while he finishes with the tree, descends the steps of the ladder with a sigh of relief. The traces of exhaustion clear from his eyes as he approaches the boxes of ornaments, the piles of shimmering tinsel, and it feels magical, to share this experience with him again, to take part in one of his treasured traditions. A family tradition.

"Is your mom busy today?" she inquires, fiddling with one of the golden Santas that stand sentinel on either side of the tree, wiping away a smear of imaginary dust.

Castle's eyes flicker up to see her, a question in the smile that twitches at the corners of his mouth. "She mentioned something about a cast dinner this evening, so she's most likely preparing for that. Why?"

"I just thought… doesn't she usually help when we decorate?"

"My mother's version of helping us decorate is _supervising_ , in which she stands at a near distance and points with her wineglass towards what needs fixing."

Ah, now that she thinks about it… Martha didn't have a very _active_ role the last time they had furbished the loft with Christmas décor.

"But she helped with those little winter village arrangements you used to put out on the tables, and hung a few ornaments on the tree," Kate recalls aloud. "Can we save a few spots for her to fill?"

Rick places the vibrant red stocking with Alexis's name embroidered in gold back into the box he had drawn it from, abandons his rifling through the storage containers to approach her and the toy train making circles on its tracks around the glittering white tablecloth.

"And we should call Alexis, invite her over to help with the tree," Kate suggests, staring down at the handmade angel smiling up at her from a box near her feet. "If you think she'd be okay with-"

"I'll call her," he interrupts, purposefully, pressing a fleeting kiss to her cheek and starting for the kitchen, retrieving his phone from the counter and scrolling through his contacts for his daughter's name. "And I'm sure she'll be happy to come."

"Not if you mention I'm here," she mutters, huffing when a piece of popcorn bounces off of her shoulder.

"Alexis, hey Pumpkin," she listens to him greet only moments later, but Kate refuses to tear her eyes from the opened boxes of decorations in front of her, attempting to channel her nerves into sorting through the differing styles of ornaments instead.

Today has been damn near perfect; she's _home_ , covering the first floor of the loft in Christmas decorations, and she's happy, so blissfully happy during a time that has always caused the hollow spot in her heart to ache with well-known sorrow. The last thing she wants is to cut short the joy of all the progress she's made with her husband by ending up in a stalemate with his daughter.

Fixing her marriage with Castle meant more than mending her relationship with the man himself, she's known that. He was a package deal, as he'd always been, and she's managed to regain acceptance from his mother, but Alexis will be an entirely different story. She doesn't think his daughter will _want_ to mend any fences today and Kate can't find a single reason to blame her.

"Okay, so see you in an hour? No, you don't have to bring anything. Most of the decorations are already here at the loft. Yep, sounds great. Love you too, bye."

Kate caresses a gleaming red ball, swipes her thumb over the streaks of glitter swirling across the surface, mimicking the winter winds outside.

"We're going to be fine," Castle murmurs from behind her, grazing his knuckles down the ladder of her spine beneath the deep red sweater she had changed into during their stop at her place. Her best attempt to be 'festive'. "I promise."

"Don't make promises," she sighs, reaching back to steal his hand away from her back, drag it around to twine with hers at her stomach. "Not those kinds."

"But other kinds?"

The smile rises unbidden to her lips, stretching at the touch of his cheek to hers, the wall of his chest supporting her back.

"I don't even want to know what you mean by that," she mumbles, sweeping her eyes over the tree taking up all the space in the room, roped with lights, lacking ornaments.

"The good kind," he shrugs at her back, even though she's hardly listening to him speaking nonsense in her ear. "I can promise you that no matters what happens when my daughter gets here, that this tree will be decorated by the end of the night. That after we're done, I'll take you to bed, wake up with you in the morning so I can see you off to work, make sure you have your coffee."

He pauses, expects her interruption, but Kate only tilts her head further into his, relishes in the delicious burn of his stubble against her cheek each time he speaks, savors the words that fall out.

"I can promise you a great Christmas, a joyful beginning to the new year," he continues, his voice dropping to that soft, earnest tone that tends to soothe, calm, complete her. "Can also promise you a couple of kids and a long life together too, if you want."

She chokes on her laugh, feels his grin broaden beneath her cheek.

"These are the kinds of promises I could be on board with," she chuckles, untangling from his arms to push a kiss to his mouth, a little harder, more desperate, than she had intended, but the fact that he was willing to make her promises at all, after everything… she was grateful. "And Castle?"

Rick lets her go, but quirks his brow in acknowledgement as he starts back towards the tree, the lights still darkened, waiting to shine. He bends beneath the bristling edges of pine needles to connect the extension cord near the bright red tree stand, follows the path of the forest green wire to plug it into the outlet.

"That last part," she murmurs. "I want it."

The Christmas lights come to life, illuminating the tree with gold, but Castle doesn't spare the magnificent sight in the middle of his living room a second glance. He's looking at her.


	12. Chapter 12

"Here, you take the silver, I'll do the gold," Castle instructs, equipped with an armful of long tinsel garland. "We'll start from the bottom, make our way to the top."

"We should have done this before we started hanging ornaments on the branches," she huffs, sputtering when a strip of tinsel catches on her bottom lip.

"True, but we already have too many ornaments up to take them down, so we improvise." Kate sighs but nods her agreement, aligning her strip of garland a few layers of branches above his, circling the tree with him. "Besides, this is your fault."

Metallic gold garland spills over her shoulder when Castle bumps into her from behind.

" _How_ is this my fault?"

"Because watching you hang ornaments is adorable and I got distracted," he explains, retrieving the tinsel from her shoulder, dusting away the glimmering remnants from the material of her sweater. "But I know you can't help it, so I forgive you."

"Castle," she sighs, rolling her eyes and returning her attention to their progress around the tree, but the knock that resounds from the front door has them both going still.

"Alexis," he murmurs, glancing down to the armful of tinsel that Kate relieves him of, folding it over her arm with the rest of the sparkling garland. Castle shoots her a grateful look, smears a kiss to her forehead and squeezes her shoulder before trotting past her for the door.

Beckett drops her gaze to the shimmering mixture of silver and gold in her arms, arranging them along a thicker branch to mark where they'll resume, after he welcomes his daughter inside, after Alexis decides to stay, or go.

"Wow, Dad, you got a lot done on your own," she hears the younger woman praise from the front entryway, a smile in her voice, the open and close of a door following. "I'm glad you changed your mind about not decorating this year."

The click of Alexis's heels in the entryway grows louder and Kate takes a deep breath of pine, wills herself to stop hiding behind the tree limbs like a coward.

"Actually, it wasn't even my idea to decorate, and I had a lot of help," Castle states, her cue to make her presence known.

"Then who-"

Kate steps out into the open, emerging from behind the half dressed tree, and feels her stomach clench, the muscles coiling tight at the fall of Alexis's jaw, the stiffening to her posture, and the immediate flash of disapproval in her eyes.

"Hi Alexis," she greets, proud of the even tone her voice carries, but the ice in his daughter's eyes only hardens.

"Captain Beckett." Alexis returns, cold and formal, before swinging her gaze back towards her father. "What's going on here?"

"Well, we were decorating and had hoped you'd like to join us," Castle explains with a shrug, as if absolutely nothing is out of the ordinary here, but the strain to his eyes is visible, the smile on his lips tight and wavering.

Alexis crosses her arms over her chest, pins her father with a glare that is fierce with both indignation and betrayal. "You never mentioned she would be here."

Disappointment flares in Castle's eyes, but the discipline of a parent rises quicker and Kate steps in before this steely exchange can charge into an argument.

"Alexis," she murmurs, approaching the two of them, but not stepping between, not even close. "I'm sorry, we should have let you know I'd be here before you agreed to come."

"Kate-"

Beckett quiets him with a silencing pierce of her eyes that's always worked in the past and Rick purses his lips.

"I think it's best if I go," Alexis decides, curt but calm, reaching for the closet holding her coat.

"Could we talk first?" Kate requests, a flash of incredulity cutting through the ice frozen over Alexis's irises, but she speaks again before his daughter can dismiss her. "I'm aware that I'm likely the last person you want to speak to, Alexis, but I'm only asking for a few minutes. You're free to walk out at any time."

Alexis glances between the two of them, her nostrils flaring with frustration before she sighs in relent. "Fine. A few minutes."

Kate gestures towards Castle's office and his daughter strides ahead, the shoulder length flames of her hair billowing behind her. She moves to follow, but Castle catches her wrist, flicks his gaze between the two of them.

"Kate, you don't have to talk to her alone, I can-"

"Yes, I do," she argues softly, shaking her wrist free but giving his arm a quick squeeze. "We won't be long. Start hanging the garland in the kitchen."

She turns her back on him before he can protest, bracing herself for the confrontation that was in store for her in the next room.

Alexis is waiting for her by the window, examining one of the snow globes from Castle's desk, returning it to the sturdy oak surface once Kate enters, easing the door shut behind her.

"I hadn't seen the article in the paper until now," Alexis begins, nodding to the opened black and white pages on Castle's desk, not yet meeting Kate's eyes but allowing her to see the judgment flashing in hers, the distaste. "I usually avoid any articles that feature my dad, wish I would have seen that one, though. Would have provided a nice warning."

"Alexis-"

"So, are you two back together again?" Alexis inquires, cocking an eyebrow in question. "Or are you just going to play with his heart for the holidays, have him broken again by the spring?"

Kate flattens her palm against the outside of her thigh to refrain from placing it to her chest, desperate to break the habit of guarding the fragile state of her heart with the cover of her hand. Alexis doesn't speak from assumption, she speaks from experience, the states she's witnessed her father in because of Kate. Beckett knows what she's done to him, the damage she's caused, but to hear it so blatant and bitter from Alexis somehow makes it worse.

"No," Kate replies, scratching her thumb along the denim of her jeans. "I don't intend to break him, to hurt him more than I already have."

"I don't believe you," Alexis says without anger, a matter of fact sting to the statement.

"I didn't expect you to," Kate admits with a nod of understanding. "And I don't blame you."

"Then what are we doing here?"

Beckett sucks in a shallow breath through her lips and eases onto the edge of Castle's desk. "I wanted the chance to explain to you, to tell you the truth."

"What truth?" Alexis snaps, her fingers coiling into fists at her chest. "You walked out on my dad for no apparent reason, left him heartbroken and miserable for almost two years, and now you're back, what more is there to it?"

"It wasn't a choice I wanted to make." Alexis doesn't soften, every inch of her body jagged and ready to explode into pieces of shrapnel, but intrigue cracks through the ice, and Kate takes her chance while she has it. "You remember the case with Allison Hyde, where I disappeared for three days and wasn't allowed to contact your dad, to tell him what was going on?"

Alexis nods, memory flashing in her gaze before her eyes automatically fly to Kate's side, as if she can see the scar that lies beneath. She almost forgets how much of that case Alexis was involved with, how much she saw.

"Long story short," Kate sighs, dropping her eyes to the frosted glass of the window pane at Alexis's shoulder. "That case was so much bigger than I'd realized, so much… worse, than I could have imagined, and by choosing to pursue it, I painted another target onto my back. And that risk extended to anyone I was close to."

"My dad," Alexis murmurs, the wheels in her head turning, the frown on her lips deepening as her brow furrows.

"And mine, Martha, the boys, you-" Alexis cuts her gaze back to Kate, skepticism flaring in the corners, but comprehension is slowly beginning to melt the glaciers of her eyes. "I thought that if I could make it look as if your dad and I were separated that anyone who could potentially come after me wouldn't touch him, that he would be safe."

"And now?"

Kate shakes her head. "I - I had to let it go. Every trail I followed was a dead end, a waste of time, and I was… I wasn't doing well."

"Worse than your mom's case?"

Alexis stiffens for a moment, the question apparently unplanned, but she had been aware that Castle's daughter knew certain aspects of her personal life, parts she had not revealed herself, from all of his years shadowing her.

"No, but almost," Kate murmurs the admission. "With my mom's case, I had nothing to lose. I was willing to… to die for my cause, but with this one? I had everything on the line. Of course, I wanted justice, but I wanted your dad, that happily ever after with him, even more."

"But if you were happy here, if you loved him, then how could you just leave?" Alexis demands, some of her maturity slipping, giving way to the vestiges of the wounded child within. "You said you _chose_ to pursue this case? That means you had a choice. You chose something else over him, over the people that cared about you, and now you just expect to walk back into our lives and pretend that everything's just back to normal?"

"No, Alexis," Kate asserts in the calm tone that comes naturally from years of addressing emotionally distressed members of a victim's family. "I realize that the choices I made were wrong and that I hurt people, and I'm under no illusion that things can simply go back to the way they were."

"Then what are you and my dad doing? Because I know you can't just be friends, he – he loves you too much to-"

"We're… healing," she tries to explain. "I made a lot of mistakes in these past two years and the only way I can remedy them is by proving that I've learned from them. And your dad, he-"

"Loves you enough to get over being hurt," Alexis finishes for her, something tender breaking through her freezing exterior, but Alexis turns her back on Kate, stares out the window to the city streets drenched in snow that hesitates to stick, to the buildings dusted with ice. "I don't want you to die, Kate."

Beckett startles against the desk, grateful his daughter's attention is elsewhere; she hadn't expected those words, the sorrow behind them.

"I don't want to die either, Alexis. I wasn't trying to die."

"You were trying to find justice," she murmurs, tilting her head against the cold glass. "I know that, I respect it, but you could have done that with my dad."

"Alexis-"

"You thought you were protecting him, but don't you see? You guys have been inseparable for years and any enemy who's watched you long enough would be smart enough to know that, to realize that all they would need to get to you is him." Kate's spine goes rigid as Alexis shifts to face her once, bright blue desperation for her to understand burning in his daughter's eyes. "He's your weakness. Just like you're his, just like Gram and I have always been. That's why we're all safer together."

Oh, as if she hadn't agonized over her mistakes enough. Now Alexis had revealed a new angle, another reason to add to the mass of evidence that reinforced why she was wrong, another reason to drown in her mounting regrets. She had felt baptized in Castle's forgiveness, washed clean and made anew, but now… she felt stained in sin all over again. Damn near crucified.

"You're right," Beckett manages, swallowing down the lump of remorse in her throat, the mourning of all she had lost. All for nothing. "An apology doesn't even begin to cover it, but I'm sorry, Alexis. The last thing I had wanted was to hurt those I cared about, including you."

Alexis ducks her head, the curtain of her hair sweeping forward to hide her eyes, and Beckett waits patiently for a response, for the lift of his daughter's head, the decision in her eyes.

"You're done with this case?"

"Yes."

"And if it somehow comes up again? If you get dragged back into it?"

"Then I approach it differently," she answers his daughter's cross-examination, holding strong through the scrutiny of her gaze. "I don't do it alone."

Alexis slowly uncrosses her arms, one defense lowering, and flicks her eyes to the closed office door, the glittering snowflakes dangling from the tops of bookshelves, the glimpses of Christmas lights and patches of the red and green color scheme consuming the loft visible between the spines of novels.

"You got my dad to decorate?"

Kate hesitates, but nods. "Yeah, he - he hadn't planned to this year, but you know how much he loves Christmas. Couldn't let him give up on his traditions, not when we both know how happy they make him."

Alexis nods her agreement, the pale line of her throat bobbing with a thick swallow, and then she's stepping forward with outstretched arms.

"Welcome back, Kate," Alexis whispers, engulfing her in a crushing hug that takes her a second to return, shock ribboning through her system, but Beckett returns Alexis's embrace, hopes she can feel the depths of her apology before she pulls away. "We should get back out there, make sure Dad doesn't go overboard with the tinsel."

Alexis steps back, blinking a little too quickly, but Kate pretends not to notice, rises from the edge of the desk to open the study door, emerge alongside his daughter back into the living room. Rick abandons the arrangement of deep red poinsettias in the middle of the dining table the second he spots them, ping-ponging his gaze between the two of them with nervous anticipation bubbling in his eyes.

"So, it looks like you guys got most of the excess decorations up, does that mean we're focusing mostly on the tree tonight?" Alexis asks, an apologetic smile gracing her lips, and Kate steps to the side when Castle strides towards them, embraces his daughter in a bear hug that has her chuckling against his shoulder, burying her face there like a child but sneaking a glimpse at Kate, smiling back at her for the first time in two years.

Castle's promise had been true all along. They were going to be fine.

"Yeah," Rick answers once Alexis draws back. "We were in the middle of stringing the tinsel garland around the tree, then we were just going to hang the rest of the ornaments."

"And we've got popcorn in the kitchen, some of your famous hot chocolate too," Kate adds, watching Alexis's smile brighten.

"Perfect. I'm going to go have a cup and we can get back to work."

Alexis heads for the kitchen with her head held high, the same form of confidence that had accompanied her inside the loft, but softened with tenderness now, with the comfort of the peace now instilled amidst their dysfunctional, still recovering little family.

"How'd you do it?"

Castle is staring at her, soft wonder in his eyes, and Kate sighs, drifts into his waiting arms to smear a kiss to his parted lips. His daughter's indisputable logic plays on a loop in her mind, the cold truth that he would always be marked for death because of her, that it would forever be pointless to stay away.

"It was a mutual effort," she murmurs, brushing her hands along his waist. "Alexis saw my side of things, I saw hers, and I - I'm sorry, again, for everything."

"No more apologies, Kate," he admonishes and she sighs, drops her head to his shoulder for just a moment of rest. They're going to be fine, they're going to have their happily ever after, they've already begun to embark on the path of it. And if by some injustice, it is taken from them sooner than expected, she won't make the mistake of wasting another day not loving him as fiercely as she possibly can. "See, told you I keep my promises."

The laugh breaches her lips, pools in the hollow of his throat, and Kate shakes her head, pulls back to meet his eyes.

"Now, for those kids, huh?"

"Don't tease," he pouts.

" _Kids_? Am I getting a sibling soon?" Alexis cuts in with wide eyes, but Kate is still laughing, patting Rick's chest when his ears go red and hooking an arm through Alexis's, walking with her towards the ornaments laid out across the length of the couch.

"No," Kate assures her, retrieving a handmade reindeer face constructed of painted popsicle sticks, with pipe cleaner antlers and a bright red ball of fuzz for a nose. Alexis joins her, bending to examine the rows of handmade tree decorations from her childhood, and Beckett meets Castle's gentle gaze from across the room. "Not yet."

* * *

Castle insists on finishing up with the dishes after Alexis has left for the night, nudging Kate away from the sink with his hip, suggesting she take the time to prepare for bed. She'd almost forgotten she still had to work in the morning. They had all shared a late dinner of Chinese takeout during their decorating intermission and Alexis had made her departure not long after, her own job demanding her appearance in the early morning hours.

"I don't know if I'll have time to drop in throughout the next few days, but the business is going to be closed for the rest of the week, so I know I'll be available for Christmas, if we're still doing Christmas traditions…" Alexis had trailed off with a hitched brow, uncertainty born from the last year flickering in her eyes.

"We're doing Christmas, just like we used to," Castle had assured his daughter. "Why don't you just come Christmas Eve, stay for the holiday?"

The idea had elicited a spill of childlike delight through Alexis's features. "I'd love that."

Kate turns the faucets of his too good to ignore bathtub, adjusts the temperature, and strips off her sweater, placing it on the edge of the sink, and notices the mirror as she does. Her lips curl with delight at the sparkling snowflake decals clinging to the glass. The gel stickers are soft to the touch, glitter infused whites and ice blues, turning the bathroom into their own little winter wonderland.

The water begins to rise and Kate sheds the last of her clothing, leaving her jeans to pool on the tile floor, her bra and underwear joining the pile as she dips her toes in the hot water, humming at the glorious burn. Her apartment had had horrible water heating in the winter, ruling out the luxury of steaming baths, leaving her to soak in a lukewarm tub.

"Thought I heard the bath running." Castle appears in the open doorway, a glass of red wine in his hand while she sinks into the deep tub, grinning when his gaze dips down into the jacuzzi tub of water with her. "Oh, and that reminds me."

Rick places her glass on the edge of the tub, starts towards the cabinets below the sink.

"I didn't know we were decorating the bathroom too," Kate comments while she listens to him rummage through the products along the lower level of shelves.

He chuckles, the door snapping shut as he rises with knees that pop and tug a wince from his features. "You know I go all out."

"Wasn't complaining," she points out, arching her brow, attempting to see what he has cradled in his arm, but then Castle is standing over the bathtub, depositing a bright blue bath bomb into the water.

"Alexis got them for me," he explains as the ball of soap fizzes and dyes the water into a brilliant cerulean, emitting the smell of sweet lavender and chamomile into the air, and Kate glances up to see an entire wicker basket of the bath products in the crook of his elbow. "I figured you'd like them."

Kate bites her lip, swishes her hand through the water. "I'd like it even better if you joined me."

She doesn't have to ask twice. Castle lowers the basket to the sink next to her sweater, undresses with a smile that warms her heart in places the steaming water surrounding her can't reach. Her back molds to the curve of the tub, making room for him to descend into the water in front of her, sink back into the cove of her body.

Rick rumbles with pleasure at the twine of her legs around his waist, the slip of her arms beneath his to splay her palms at his naked chest. The weight of him combined with the soothing scald of the water unwinds every knotted muscle beneath her skin, bathes her in the essence of tranquility, and the scent of a relaxation inducing bath bomb.

"With the snowflake mirror and the light blue water, kinda feels like we're in the middle of a hot spring or something," Castle mumbles, his voice slurring with sleep, and she lifts her hands from the water, runs them through his hair and feels him sink further into the embrace of her body.

"I prefer this to a hot spring," she decides, reaching for the wineglass balancing on the edge of the tub, taking a brief sip. "Though I wouldn't mind if our next vacation consisted of one."

Castle chuckles, glides his hands along her shins beneath the water, traveling up to curve his palms over her knees. "Thanks for today, Kate."

She shakes her head, draws her hands down from his hair to trace her fingers along the ridges of his collarbones, dipping into the valleys of skin filled with water. "Don't thank me for anything. Today was special because of you, your kid-"

"Today was special because it started off with me waking up in bed with you," he corrects, squeezing her outer thigh. "And was followed by moving half of your belongings back into our home, along with decorating for my favorite holiday and inviting my daughter over, all of which had been your ideas. And now, it's ending with me in a bath with my wife. So yeah, whether you want to accept it or not, I'm thanking you."

Kate huffs, watches his shoulders hunch at the breath of cool air to his exposed skin and presses her mouth to the goosebumps along his neck to make up for it.

"Who said it ends in the bath, Castle?" she teases, trailing her lips up to his ear, so perfectly in reach of her teeth.

His body is already shifting to rise from the haven of hers, to face her in the bath, to emerge from the wayer and head towards the bedroom, but Kate coaxes him back into the enchanting blue water. Castle doesn't protest, humming with satisfaction as she settles in his lap, stretching past him for the controls near the faucets that will activate the jets placed along the sides of the tub.

"Can we just stay in here a while longer?" she murmurs at his throat, allowing her body to melt and merge with every strip of flesh and line of bone.

"As long as you want," he answers, trailing dripping fingers up and down her spine, caressing the expanding branches of her ribs, and she wants to respond with the 'forever' that is already dancing on the tip of her tongue. But Castle has her words feeling too heavy in her mouth, his touch a drug that seeps through her pores, works with the water to draw her into a state of dozing against his chest.

And she decides she doesn't need to say it. He already knows.


	13. Chapter 13

Attempting the feat of Christmas shopping the day before Christmas Eve was possibly the biggest mistake she had ever made. Asking Lanie to accompany her may be the second.

"Girl, you owe me big time," her best friend growls from her side, shouldering a gaggle of older women out of their way and dragging Kate down the sidewalk. The shopping frenzy during the holidays is always overwhelming, but a mere 24 hours before the start of Christmas celebrations had proven to be an entirely new form of mayhem. "Not _just_ for accompanying you through this madness, but for letting me be the last to know about you and Castle."

"I told you I hadn't meant for you to be the last to know," Kate protests on a huff, shuddering at the snowflakes managing to kiss the back of her neck as she hustles alongside Lanie through the lower east side, retreating into a blessedly less crowded coffee shop further down the street. "We were still figuring things out and we started meeting at the precinct sometimes-"

"Mhmm, and then the entire homicide division knows you're a thing again. Meanwhile, all _I'm_ getting is far more information from Perlmutter about his love life than I could ever need," Lanie mutters, stepping into the line and withdrawing her credit card from her purse.

"Lanie, I'm sorry," Kate sighs, for the fourth time since she had called her best friend this morning, begged for the favor to join her in the pre-Christmas horrors of gift shopping. But they had been at it for hours, browsing through the crowds to comb through all of Rick's favorite stores, ruling out all of the gifts that would have once been suitable, but not this year.

It wasn't that she had forgotten to buy him a present beforehand, her mind had been agonizing over it for the last two weeks, but with all of her time divided between him and the precinct, she hadn't had the chance to scour the shops for the perfect gift. And now it was the day before Christmas Eve and she had a present prepared for everyone she loved except her husband.

"You know it wasn't my intention to alienate you, but I should have called you sooner."

" _Way_ sooner," Lanie corrects, but glances to Kate from the corner of her eye. "And apology accepted. Honestly, I'm just glad you pulled your head out of your ass and snatched that man back up before it was too late."

Kate huffs, grinning at her friend as they move forward in the line. Lanie hadn't known everything, nothing more than the basics about the LockSat investigation, but she had eventually learned it was the core reason behind her distancing herself from Castle. And like everyone else who knew even a whisper of the truth, she hadn't approved. But she had never stopped supporting, encouraging, attempting to help in whatever way she could. Rick had been right, though – Kate had been the only one who had had the power to help herself.

"Yeah, me too."

"Does writer boy already have your gift picked out?"

"He says he does," Beckett confirms, retrieving the rewards card Castle had talked her into investing in years ago from the inside pocket of her purse, tracing her nail along the edge. "But I have no idea what it is. It's not under the tree or in my stocking-"

"Imagining you having a stocking hanging up on his fireplace is just too cute," Lanie smirks, elbowing Kate when she glares at her for the comment.

Though, she can't deny it does elicit a burst of pride in her chest every time she passes through the dining room, catches sight of the sinfully soft stocking with her name sewn into the fluffy white lining hanging next to his above the electric fireplace insert.

"I just know his gift has to be perfect," Beckett stresses, tightening the coat around her frame, trying to preserve what little warmth she's managed to maintain. "It's our first real Christmas together in two years and I owe him so much-"

"Honey, you know that for Castle, it's probably a gift in itself that you two are spending the holiday together, don't you?"

The corners of Kate's mouth curl upwards, her heart softening at the truth of the statement.

"Yeah, it's a gift for me too," she murmurs, allowing Lanie to order first, following after her, and drifting off to the waiting area once the barista has taken their names. "I just… I want to give him something that can show him how much he means to me, how committed I am to doing this right. I want - I want to give him a promise."

Lanie sighs, a gentle grin flirting with her lips, accompanying the exasperated shake of her head. "How the hell are we supposed to find something like that in a department store?"

"I'm screwed," Kate mutters, reaching thoughtlessly for her ring finger, trying to warm the chilled digit and toying with the golden band encircling her bone, spinning it around and around- "Oh my god."

Lanie sobers beside her, glancing from Kate's frozen fingers to her wide eyes, concern and curiosity blending through her gaze. "Beckett?"

"I know what to give him," she whispers, trapping her smile behind the cage of her fingers.

Lanie grabs their coffees when they appear on the counter, nudges Kate towards the nearest available table, and shoves her beverage into her frigid hands as soon as they're sitting.

"Spill."

* * *

Kate slots her key into the front door, grins at the give of the locks, the regained access to the loft she's been granted. Castle had pressed her old key into her palm when she had kissed him goodbye that morning.

"I'd thought about saving it for you as a Christmas present, but this one couldn't wait," he had told her with a smile that had been a little too tentative.

Any boundaries left between them had been crossed, wiped away like the dust of the snow coating the city, refusing to stick for long, but uncertainty still bloomed in his eyes at times, apprehension in the line of his mouth. He was still getting used to having her back, to being hers again, and whether he realized it or not, he was still wary that she may not be as invested in their marriage as she claims. And it hurts, spears the vulnerable places in her chest every time he hesitates, but she refuses to dwell on it. He has every right to wrestle with his doubts in her, but the battles will become easier, the victories effortless, because she intends to spend the rest of their lives proving that she's here to stay.

"Rick?" she calls, placing her bags down on the floor of the foyer while she sheds her trench coat, hangs it neatly in the coat closet alongside his. "You home?"

"In the kitchen," his voice returns and she retrieves her purchases from the floor, follows the sound of him to the fridge.

"Already preparing for Christmas Eve dinner?" Kate assesses, flicking her eyes to the slew of ingredients littering the counter, and wow, he's really going all out. "You know, both your mother and I offered to help you."

"Yes," Castle nods, backing out of the fridge with a frozen turkey in his arms. "Your help I will gladly accept, but Mother's version of helping with Christmas dinner will likely be making the cranberry sauce. Maybe some stuffing."

"How much are we cooking exactly?" she inquires, noticing the ham he's marinating atop the stove, the turkey he's placing on the counter, the vegetables in the sink and the rolls of fresh bread on the island. "And for how many?"

"Oh, just the four of us," he assures her with a glance over his shoulder, taking notice of the bags in her hand. "Get the last of your shopping done?"

Beckett eases the two gift bags behind her back, earns a curious quirk of his eyebrow, but she doesn't want him to recognize the brand name of the boutique on the bags. Her idea in the coffee shop had been perfect, but that didn't mean she hadn't also wanted to purchase something that would grant him instant gratification on Christmas Day, and Lanie had been all too encouraging of her trip to the nearest lingerie shop.

"Yeah, finally have everything I need. When did you manage to buy all of your dinner prep?"

"While you were out," he replies, sparing a look back towards the assortment of ingredients and wincing, as if finally realizing just how much he plans to cook. "I may have gone a little overboard."

"You think so?" Kate teases on a chuckle, drifting forward to pat his chest when his lips pucker with a pout. "Don't worry, babe. I'm good with taking Christmas leftovers for lunch. Or donating some of it to a food drive."

"Oh, Alexis would love that idea," he grins, framing her waist in his large hands, pulling her hips in flush with his and eradicating the last of the chill of winter from her veins. Her body thrums with excitement, the anticipation of his mouth descending onto hers, until she feels one of his hands sliding lower, grazing the curve of her ass and the top of the shopping bag-

"Richard Castle," she huffs, but he only laughs at her, buries the rich sound in her cheek before she can step back, striding towards their bedroom and throwing him a reproachful glare over her shoulder.

The sounds of his amusement follow her, stringing a secret smile along her lips, but it wavers as her phone begins to buzz in her back pocket. Kate pauses in her meandering through the living room, dodging decorations and slowing to a stop before she can reach his study, withdrawing the device to see Vikram's name flashing across her screen. She frowns, knowing for a fact that Vikram's reasons for calling her can't be valid, not when the only case he had been working on today had been closed a couple of hours ago.

"Captain Beckett," she answers on a sigh, shifting impatiently in the doorway.

"Beckett!" Vikram says her name in a rushed breath and dread coils in her stomach. "Rita and Hunt, Castle's parents? Well, his father and his step-mother, they have LockSat in their sights. They're closing in on him, they-"

Her entire body goes cold, stiff, and her fingers cramp around the phone as Vikram's words begin to run together. She had stepped back from this. She was out, she was done, she couldn't go back. Not now, not when Castle is-

"Beckett, are you listening to me?" Vikram demands, his voice urgent, but Kate is already shaking her head. "Rita contacted me, she really thinks this is it, that-"

"No," she croaks, hearing the noises from the kitchen go still. "I'm no longer a part of this, I can't be. They're trained agents, they - they can handle this without me."

The words grind past her teeth, the instinct to interrogate, to learn all of the facts and drive out to join those agents a burning thing inside her chest. Did it make her a hypocrite to deny it? To ignore such a vital part of her? The part of her that is wired with the need to know, the need to take a stand and fight.

"Are you... you're serious?" Vikram questions, surprised, a little judgmental, but Castle's warmth appears at her side, the concern in the eyes that she lifts her gaze to meet burning away her doubts.

Roy Montgomery had once told her that it was their job to speak for the dead, to achieve the justice that those victims are owed once the wicked rob them of their lives, but not at the price of her own life, her happiness.

She had given ten years to her mother's murder, two to LockSat, not nearly enough to the man who loved her, the man who deserved more.

"Keep me updated," she responds, withdrawing the phone from her cheek, Vikram's protests silenced by the tap of her thumb to the 'end call' button.

"That was Vikram," Castle assesses, staring down at the phone in her palm. "Calling about the investigation, about LockSat."

Beckett nods, pocketing the device once more and granting him her full attention. "He told me he'd been contacted by the agent, Rita, that even your dad was involved, closing in on them."

The lines of his face harden at the mention of his father, leftover hurt and bitterness leaking into his features, worry and reservation bleeding in as well.

"What are you going to do?"

"I quit this case, Rick," she murmurs, snagging both of his hands in hers, anxiously circling her thumbs over his knuckles. He thinks she's going to run out on him, she can see it roaring like a panic, quiet but deadly, in his eyes, that she'll run right at this case once again. Without him. "I handed whatever I had on it over to Rita, told Vikram to drop it as well, but Rita must have known he'd be the quickest way to reach me, to keep me in the loop whether I wanted to be or not."

Castle narrows his eyes on her, not accusatory, but searching, seeking. "Do you want to be?"

Her brow furrows as the words attempt to form, the tangled knot of her thoughts attempting to unfurl onto her tongue. "I want to know," she concedes, the circle of her thumbs slowing over his bones. "If they catch this person, if they learn the truth, I want to know. But I don't - I don't need to be out there, chasing him down like I thought I did," she explains, to both him and herself, but her husband doesn't seem convinced.

"Kate, if you need to do this, we can. Just let me-"

" _No_ ," she insists, tugging him in closer, arms folding between them, their fists pressing into her stomach. "Castle, that's - that's the point. I - it may be my instinct to tackle this case headfirst, but what I need? Is this. My first thought when Vikram called wasn't that I needed to get the details and go into battle, it was of you. I need you more, I just want-"

Her phone vibrates again, cuts her off before she can choke on her own words, and she swallows it down, digs into her pocket to hold the phone between them while Castle uses his freed hand to clutch her waist.

 _False alarm. I'm sorry, Beckett. They lost him._

Rick frowns down at the message, but she doesn't and it surprises her, confuses her, the lack of disappointment.

"There will be a day when LockSat is brought to justice," Kate decides, knows it deep down to be true, just like it had been in Bracken's case. It may take time, but the truth will always conquer. "And I hope to be a part of that. That reckoning will come and I want you to be standing beside me when it does. But today is not that day and more than anything, right now, I just want us to be - to be us. I don't want a case hanging over us anymore."

"It's not," he promises her, hooking an arm around her neck and drawing her in close, holding her tight, breathing out relief into her hair. "It's not and you... you just proved that to me."

Her own relief rushes out against his throat and Kate coils her arms around his waist, resides in the moments of solace that cleanse the flares of panic from her system. Before the scent of smoke can elicit a fresh wave in Castle's.

"Shit, I think I left an oven mitt on the stove," he hisses, managing to smear a hasty kiss to the corner of her eye before sprinting through the living room, into the blooming clouds consuming the kitchen. And just like that, the raw, anguished parts of her are soothed, the laughter bubbling at her lips like a balm, drawing her away from the dark depths of the rabbit hole always open and ready for her and back home, into normalcy with him. Kate bends to retrieve the bags that had fallen from her grasp after she had answered the phone and resumes her trek through his study, while Rick tosses the steaming oven mitt into the sink.

"Crisis averted!" he calls after her as she retreats with her purchases to the bedroom, hides them in the secret spot near the back of the large walk-in closet where she's always successfully kept his presents concealed in the past. She can't be certain whether he is talking about the fire hazard in the kitchen or the potential disaster that phone call from Vikram could have evoked.

Beckett returns to the living room moments later to find him scooping up a package from the coffee table, holding it out to her. "Before I forget, your dad dropped by. He was sorry that he missed you," Castle informs her. "But he said he was leaving early for the cabin, that he would call you as soon as he got there, and that he thought you should have these back."

Kate's brow furrows as he hands her the cardboard box, taped across the top, but the slice of her thumbnail snaps the loose packing tape with ease and allows the flaps of the box to fall open.

"Oh," she breathes, her heart in her throat at the first look inside, threatening to choke her. One thing after another threatening to strangle her today. "Our Christmas decorations, the ones we saved."

Rick shifts in closer, peering over her shoulder to snag a glimpse of the box's contents, the mismatched ornaments and handmade memories her mom had always treasured. The box is small, not containing much, but what it did have inside was priceless, painful and wonderful at once, and Kate props the cardboard atop of the sofa, draws Castle into her side and gives him the story he silently begs for.

"You already know that after my mom died, after that last Christmas we all spent together as a family, my dad and I boxed up all of our decorations, put away Christmas for good," she murmurs, that first Christmas they spent together as a real couple still fresh in her mind, when she had revealed the truth behind the hollow ache the holiday season brought her and Rick had accepted her need for seclusion with such gracious understanding. "My dad gave away most of the decorations, the more materialistic ones that had never really mattered, but he went through beforehand, picked out all of the ones Mom had always loved."

"Without you?" Castle inquires softly, grazing a fingertip to the surface of a hand sewn Christmas tree from Kate's grandmother, Johanna's mother.

"I wasn't - it was during a time when our communication skills weren't great," she admits, remembering the fury that had flushed through her blood when she'd learned of what he had done, when she had come to find that their collection of Christmas memories had been so severely minimized, but afterwards, after her anger had simmered and her father had sobered, she had been somewhat grateful for the decision to give their decorations new homes rather than allowing them to rot away in a storage space that rarely saw the light. "But I'm glad he was the one to do it. I don't think… I wouldn't have been able to let any of it go."

Castle squeezes her waist, one of those reassuring touches that he's always managed to infuse with strength. "Do you want… we don't have to put these up if you don't want to, if it's too much-"

"No," she murmurs, turning her face into the near warmth of his neck, sealing her forehead to his cheek and breathing in the scent of his aftershave, of the snow and the bitter cold outside still lingering on his skin. "I want to add them to the rest of the decorations, if we can find a place for them."

"Of course we can," Rick answers without hesitation. "There's still a ton of space on the tree and anywhere else you want to decorate."

"We," she corrects, lifting her head to hold his inquisitive gaze, to relish in the tenderness leaking through the crystal blues of his irises. "Decorate with me?"

Gentle surprise spreads through his features, infuses soft delight through his eyes, and she allows herself a moment to marvel over him, to appreciate the beauty of the man she loves before he replies. "I'd be honored."

Kate returns his smile, smears her upturned lips to his, and snags his hand, leads him towards the fully dressed tree and searches for bare limbs.

"And you know," he adds, pointing to a naked branch while she withdraws the first ornament from the box. "I was thinking we could have a Christmas movie marathon tonight, or another kind of marathon that makes life wonderful."

"Recycling lines, Castle?" she hums, adjusting the snowman with the body of a light bulb filled with glittered, brought to life with a painted on face and precariously glued pipe cleaners for arms. "Thought you were a writer."

Rick scowls at her, but his lips are still in a smile, his eyes still soft as he helps her find a spot for each and every ornament, a place for the few knick knacks included in the package from her father.

"What time will Alexis be here tomorrow?" she mentions once the box is near empty and Castle's fingers are dancing along her sides, fanning the flames of arousal that have been burning low in her stomach since she walked into that lingerie store, imagined his face once he saw her in the red satin of the piece she had picked out, the swatches of lace and festive white trim.

"She said around four-thirty at the earliest, what about you?" Castle hums, skimming the waistband of her jeans, toying with the hem of her grey sweater. "How late are you scheduled to work?"

"Five," she murmurs, fiddling with the top button of his plaid shirt, cradling the box between them. "Is that too late?"

"No, no," he assures her, but she can tell his attention is shifting from their Christmas Eve plans, down to the work of her fingers deftly undoing the buttons of his shirt, the graze of her nails to every patch of skin she uncovers beneath the fabric. "Mother doesn't plan to be here until six, and we won't eat until around seven, so five should work perfectly."

"So this is the last night that we have the loft all to ourselves until Christmas is over," Kate muses, teasing at the glimpse of skin beneath her fingertips, feeling his muscles tense and contract beneath her touch.

She doesn't expect the clench of his fingers at her hips to travel lower, to curl and jerk her hips into the cradle of his.

"I think it's time we take full advantage of an empty loft, Beckett," he murmurs at her ear, stealing the control from her with such ease, sucking at the sensitive spot right below the hinge of her jaw and - stopping. "Oh, wait a second."

"Wait?" she gasps, her brow furrowing despite the frenzy he's driven her senses into. She can hardly think past the heat of his hands drawing her shirt up her spine, past the whirring need consuming her system, intensifying when Castle hoists her up and _oh_ , she doesn't want to wait.

"You have one last ornament in your box," he murmurs, his chest heaving, but his eyes gentling from the flames of arousal, simmering to embers as he plucks the glass ball wrapped in newspaper with one hand, hooking his arm firm around her waist despite the secure lock of her legs around his hips. "And at this vantage point, you can just reach that branch near the top."

Kate knocks her forehead into his, catches her breath while he offers the ornament to her with great care. The stampede of her heart slows at the glimpse of the decoration dangling from his fingers, the clear glass sphere that holds a family photo on the inside.

"Fifth grade Christmas project I did with Dad," she murmurs, grazing her thumb along the side, casting shadows along the smiling faces of her parents and lifting her eyes to the vacant spot on the tree Castle had spied. "Mom's favorite."

"Then I'm glad it's going near the top," Rick says as she stretches for the limb just below the star Alexis had had the honors of arranging at the very top of the tree. "I always like the special ones to go near the top, so everyone can see them."

Kate eases the loop of gold ribbon around the branch and drops her arm once the ornament hangs safely with the others, standing out yet blending in seamlessly. Belonging.

"Thank you," she mumbles, biting her lip as her body slips, aligns a little too perfectly with his all over again, but she kisses him before the desire can reheat between them, seals the sincerity to his tender smile.

"For helping you find spots on the tree for your ornaments?" Castle inquires, stepping away from the tree without wavering. His arms flex around her waist, his hands smoothing along the outside of her thighs, and Beckett drapes her hands to his cheeks, holds him steady as she closes her eyes, returns her forehead to rest with his.

"Yeah, and for making Christmas beautiful again," she whispers, peeling her eyes open to stare down into his, blinking past the tangle of lashes.

They're drifting towards his office, the shimmer of the tree and the magic of decorations glowing in the background before disappearing behind the walls of bookshelves.

"I owe you the same gratitude."

Her head begins to shake, the curtains of her hair brushing back and forth along his neck. "Castle, no-"

"There wouldn't be a Christmas for me this year if you hadn't shown up when you did, Kate. If you hadn't put in the work, if you hadn't fought for what we have," Rick murmurs, soft but with a finality that stops her from arguing, from reminding him that they wouldn't have had to fight to get back to this point in their relationship at all if she hadn't screwed it up in the first place. "I've forgiven you and we're moving forward, together. But you have to forgive yourself too."

Rick steps through the bedroom's entry and braces his knee to the edge of the mattress, lowering her body to the bedsheets with an effortless grace that always manages to steal her breath.

"I'm working on it," she manages as Castle kneels above her, tugging her jeans down her legs, gliding his hands up the revealed skin to caress her waist.

"It's part of our story," he reminds her, continuing to rid her body of clothing, touching his lips to her bared skin, but she divides her attention between the exquisite burn of his mouth dusting along her flesh and the significance of his words, the importance of them. "And I'm not sure I'd change it, even if I could, not when it led me here to this moment with you."

She doesn't have the words, lacks the ability to construct perfect sentences that convey what he means to her like he does so beautifully for her, what he does to her fragile heart, but she has her hands, her mouth and her body beneath his. And after so many years with him, she thinks her actions will always resonate louder, that he understands the silent language of her body even better than the one that stutters and stumbles out of her mouth.

Kate gasps at the scrape of his stubble to the sensitive flesh of her chest, the liquid fire of his tongue slicking over the scar between her breasts. "I'll take any story that ends with you."

"We're getting sappy," he mumbles, his lips traveling upwards, skimming kisses along the column of her throat before they're brushing with hers, teasing her with whispers of his mouth, and Kate hooks her leg at his thigh, flips them.

"Then we should stop talking."


	14. Chapter 14

She hadn't wanted to leave to work the next morning, lounging in bed longer than she should have, wrapped up in the plaid shirt she had stolen from him the night before and watching the snow fall past the glass barrier of the window. No, venturing out of bed, into the frigid world of winter hadn't been appealing at all.

Part of her felt guilty for dreading the idea of heading into the precinct, a place that was once her home, her haven, a place that depended on her. She knew it was due to the reclaimed spot in her bed, in her home, with her husband, the holiday atmosphere that had evoked such crippling sorrow last year made anew and magical once more, coaxing her to soak in every second with him by her side.

"Just a few hours," Castle had yawned, more to himself than her as he had dragged them both out of bed, nudging her towards the shower while he had shuffled into the kitchen, filled the loft with the scent of fresh coffee.

It would be a ten hour day for her, but she had repeated Castle's words in her head like a mantra throughout the day, counting down the dwindling hours on her desktop while she'd done her best to focus on her work and nothing else. Regardless of how much she wanted to return home, Kate had a full plate and she intended to give each task her undivided attention.

By the time her computer read five o'clock, she was wrapping up her last phone call with the DA, securing the court date for next Monday, and packing up her things, attempting to school her features and not look so giddy to leave while she straightened up her desk. She checked her phone as she locked up her drawers and closed all of the blinds; Rick had been texting her all day, sending her photos of himself cooking in his Christmas apron, reminding her to take the time to squeeze in a meal, or at least grab a snack every couple of hours, and the most recent from an hour ago, to be careful since the weather seemed to be worsening.

"Heading out, Boss?" Espo inquires from the doorway of her office, glancing between her and the nearest window as she shrugs on her coat. The snow is growing thicker outside, turning her office into a depressing snow globe, but she hadn't remembered any of the weather reports issuing warnings of a snowstorm. Even so, a minor blizzard won't keep her from making it to the loft. "Heard you weren't working Christmas this year, but I wasn't sure if the rumors could be true."

Kate rolls her eyes at the faux shock Esposito wears, his eyes wide and the hand rising to cover his gasping mouth. But both of her boys know why this Christmas is different than the last, why she's heading out in the early afternoon of Christmas Eve rather than locking herself in the glass house of her office, burying herself in paperwork until the holiday has passed.

"You stopping by tomorrow to grab some leftovers?" she inquires with an arch of her eyebrow, coiling her scarf around her neck and tugging out the knit beanie Castle had tucked into her coat pocket this morning when he had kissed her goodbye in the middle of the kitchen. After he had fed her pancakes shaped like Christmas trees, eggs like ornaments with turkey bacon for tinsel.

"And my present," Esposito states with a proud grin. "Castle told Ryan and I to come pick 'em up whenever we had the chance, so we'll both probably drop in later tomorrow if Ryan's back in time."

"Should be good," Beckett murmurs, pulling the hat down over her head, covering the tips of her ears with the soft ivory material. "Sometime after you meet with Daniela for Christmas brunch then?"

Esposito's eyes ripple with surprise for a moment before realization sets in. "Ryan is such a big mouth," he grumbles, but Beckett knocks him in the side with her elbow.

"He's just excited for you," she defends Ryan with a smile, remembering the way the younger detective's eyes had lit up the other day when he had filled her in on the developments of Esposito's love life. She steals a glance to his empty desk, hopes Ryan is having a wonderful Christmas Eve with his wife and kids, despite the fact that they were spending it in Jersey with a large portion of Jenny's extended family. "He claims this girl is pretty great."

"Yeah," Espo admits with a soft sigh, stepping out with her as she shuts off the lights, locks her office door behind her. "We doubled a few weeks ago, Jenny likes her too."

"So when do Castle and I make her acquaintance?" Beckett hums, adding a teasing curve of her eyebrow to the question, and Esposito huffs, embarrassment rising to his cheeks. The new girl must be quite special. "Let me know after Christmas then."

"Can you just go before you're late to your dinner?" he mumbles, retreating to his desk with a shake of his head, leaving her to chuckle at his expense. "And be careful out there, Captain. It's getting thicker by the hour."

Kate waves him off and starts for the elevator. "Just a little snow. Merry Christmas, Javi."

"You too, enjoy the time with your family."

The glimpse she catches of his smile is genuine, his words sincere, just as Ryan's had been, and she bites her lip to subdue her own smile. But today has been a good day, busy but good, the first Christmas Eve she's looked forward to in two years, and the joy runs through her chest, soothes the quite grief, the familiar ache for her mom, and rushes through her heart to feed her excitement.

Kate steps off the elevator once it reaches the ground floor and withdraws her phone from the pocket of her coat, adjusts the strap of her bag on her shoulder while she checks the time. A quarter past five. If she can catch a cab to the loft, she can be there just after five thirty, change out of her work clothes and join Castle in the kitchen, help him with his elaborate dinner plans.

She's startled by the blast of the wind when she pushes through the front door of the lobby, though, the harsh bite of the cold to the exposed patches of her skin and the pelt of the snow from the sky. She had noticed the thickening white flurries throughout the day, had seen the snow sticking to the ground for the first time all month, mounting into piles of varying slush and white powder on the sidewalks, but it hadn't looked so fierce from the inside, hadn't crossed her mind that the weather - of all things - would become a potential obstacle to her plans. Kate squints through the spit of snow, the streets crowded with cars moving mere inches by the minute, and the sink of her heart collides with the panic rising to her chest.

She may have just walked into the beginning of a blizzard.

But searching the sidewalks, she can see others braving the sudden storm, hustling to their destinations, and she abandons the idea of hailing a cab, starts down the street with snow crunching beneath her boots and blazing against her cheeks before it can get worse. The loft isn't close, but it's not far either; she's made the walk before, under better conditions, and she can do it again. It's better than being stranded across town, stuck in a taxi going nowhere for hours, and missing their Christmas Eve dinner.

She can't let him down again.

* * *

Beckett braces herself against the wind, attempts to ignore the burn of ice in her lungs, the coat of frost clinging to her lashes. She's ten minutes into her journey when her phone begins to vibrate in her coat pocket and she knows it's him, that it would only be him, and works her numbed fingers into the fabric, clumsily tugs the phone free and presses the cool screen to the frigid shell of her ear.

"H-hey Castle," she gets out through the chatter of her teeth, turning onto Crosby with a sigh of relief. It was just a straight walk down from here, she could make it, just a little further-

"Kate, are you… don't tell me you're out in this weather right now," Rick's voice answers her, concern and reprimand weighing heavy through his tone. "Beckett."

"Almost home," she says instead, forcing her legs to go faster even though she's lost feeling of the limbs beneath the too thin fabric of her jeans. "Just a few minutes away, Castle, I'm-"

"Are you insane?" he hisses, the clatter of metal rattling through her ears. "It's practically a blizzard outside and you're – are you _walking_? Did you walk home from the precinct, Kate? What the hell-"

"S-stop yelling at - at me," she mutters, pursing her chapped lips. Opening her mouth allows in too much cold air and her lungs have already morphed into icicles within the frozen cavern of her ribs.

"Go inside," Castle instructs, his voice firm, leaving no room for argument, but like hell is she retreating now, she can defrost in five minutes, when she's in the loft, when she's _home_. "Find the nearest place that's open and-"

"No," she protests, trudging through the streets of SoHo, passing Spring, his building practically in sight through the sheets of snow obscuring her view. "Already about to be there."

"You are the most stubborn woman I have ever met in my life," he snaps at her, but there's no anger in the words, only exasperation, disbelief, and maybe this wasn't her best idea. Worrying her husband to death on Christmas Eve when she was supposed to be making up for their last two Christmases spent apart. "How far are you?"

"Just a few minutes," Kate attempts to placate him, but her chattering teeth and the break of her voice due to the constant shivers racing up and down her spine likely sound far from soothing. "Already approaching Broome, about to cross-"

"I see you," he rushes out and her eyes go wide, searching through the world of white, spotting a figure in a navy blue pea coat sprinting out of the familiar building, jogging towards her, and Kate quickens her pace to meet him before he can cross the street, ignoring the blinking orange hand on the pedestrian crossing sign. Her own feet trip her up, but he's there before she can stumble, catching her by the elbows, practically dragging her onto the sidewalk, through the slush and towards the glow of the lobby.

"Castle," she breathes, the rest of the sentence she had planned trailing off into the frost coating her mind.

Rick wraps his arm around her waist, draws her into the building with a nod of appreciation to the doorman, and guides her into the elevator. Her fingers fumble for him, but her hands feel thick, useless, and Castle jabs the button for their floor with a little too much force before he turns back to her.

"What were you thinking?" he demands, reaching for her hopeless hands, slipping the gloves off and shoving them into the pocket of his coat, trapping one set of her fingers between the heat of his palms. And it _burns_ , warmth leaking back into her frozen extremities. "Was nearly freezing to death once not enough for you?"

"Not that bad," she argues, drawing her free hand up to the buttons of her coat, closing the numbed tips around the first button, working her way down until the trench falls open. Castle immediately steps into her, his own coat already parted, and seals the heat of his chest to hers, fits her thighs between his and lifts his hands to her face, palming her cheeks.

"You walked for nearly a mile in frigid temperatures, in a damn near blizzard, and - god, Kate, you nearly gave me a heart attack for Christmas. You're going to kill me."

He says it as if it's the truth, that she will truly be the death of him, as she's always feared, and Kate groans, buries her face in his neck and whispers an apology when the tip of her nose to his throat makes him shiver. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Castle. I wasn't trying to be stupid," she promises, earning a breathless puff of laughter to the top of her head. "I just - I couldn't miss this. After everything, I wasn't going to let the weather ruin Christmas with my family."

Rick deflates against her, gliding his hands into her hair and urging her head to lean back into the cradle of his palms.

"I know I said I'd walk into a tornado for you and I meant that, but I was hoping we'd actually avoid enduring natural disasters for each other."

Her lips crack into a grin and she slips her hands beneath the cashmere fabric of the forest green sweater that had been a past gift from Alexis, seals her palms to his warm skin and swallows down his shiver when he slants his mouth over hers. The press of his lips sears through hers, the slick of his tongue scalding, sending spirals of heat through her veins and starting a fire through her system.

"I'll do my best to avoid the wrath of the elements in the future," she mumbles, forcing her eyes to open despite the weight of her lashes, the drugging sensation of kissing him, noticing that the doors to the elevator have slid open. "Is dinner going okay? Martha and Alexis?"

"Everyone's fine, just worried about you. Dinner should almost be done, though, so we'll get you changed, warm you up, and-"

"We, huh?" she chuckles, remaining close to his side as he leads her out of the elevator, down the hallway to the door that is already swinging open to reveal an anxious Alexis on the other side.

"Oh yeah, I'm helping you thoroughly defrost, Beckett," he hums against her temple before they can reach his daughter, shooting an entirely different form of a shiver down her spine.

"You look frozen solid," Alexis murmurs, stepping forward to hook an arm around Kate's neck, sandwiching her between two Castles. "Feel like it too. Here, I made hot chocolate. It'll help."

Alexis pulls away and bustles back inside, heading straight for the kitchen while Rick helps ease Kate's coat from her arms, trickling his fingers over her bones as he goes, drawing her back against his chest once she's left in only the thin layer of her sweater.

"Katherine," Martha exclaims, approaching the two of them with worried eyes. "What on earth were you thinking venturing out into this atrocious weather?"

His mother draws her into an embrace while Castle shuts the front door, tutting in her ear and rubbing at Beckett's arms.

"That I could make it here without turning into a popsicle," Kate admits as Martha releases her, makes room for Alexis and the steaming beverage she holds out to Beckett.

"I'll hold it," Castle offers, accepting the Christmas mug with marshmallows bobbing along the rim. "Her fingers are still numb."

"Are not," Kate huffs, wiggling them for effect, but it probably is a better idea that he takes the weight of the mug for her. Feeling may have returned to lace through the slender bones of her fingers, but they're still rather clumsy, untrustworthy.

"Richard, take your wife, ensure she finds something warm to wear and loses that red tinge to her nose. Alexis and I will set the table."

"And keep an eye on the last of the food," Alexis adds with a glance to the potatoes Kate can see simmering on the stove, a few pots still steaming with delicious smelling contents. "Everything's going to be ready right on time."

"See, you didn't miss anything," Castle assures her, splaying a hand at the small of her back and prompting her in the direction of the bedroom once Alexis has turned back to the stove and Martha is sauntering towards the dining table.

Kate allows him to guide her through the office, into the bedroom, and plops down on the edge of their bed while he places the hot chocolate down on the nightstand. The snow rains heavy outside their windows, thick and blanketing the city in white even as darkness begins to fall, and she shivers at the touch of the chill still embedded into her skin.

"I wouldn't have held it against you, you know," Castle, murmurs, kneeling down in front of her, reaching beneath the flare of her jeans to find the zipper of her boots. "It wasn't as if you were bailing on Christmas or letting a case come first, Kate. You realize that, don't you?"

He removes her shoes, embraces her socked feet in his hands and squeezes her toes, but she doesn't speak. She knows he's right, logically, she does, but she doesn't know how to put it into words he'll understand, how to explain to him that it would have felt like the ultimate betrayal for her to miss Christmas with him, with Martha and Alexis, that it would have felt like all of her promises and progress were suddenly void.

"It's just another day, Kate-"

"No, not this year," she releases the unplanned confession. His hands pause at her ankles and she knows he's staring up at her, his eyes bright blue and concerned, questioning, but she avoids his gaze in order to speak, to sort through the words. "I know it's just another day, believe me, I just - it's the first time we're spending it together, the way we're supposed to, in two years. It's the first time I've looked forward to Christmas in two years. I didn't want to spend it apart from you."

Castle climbs from the floor to sit beside her on the bed and she risks a glance in his direction, sees the love radiating through his eyes, the wonder, and it's easily the most open she's seen him since they reunited in the beginning of December. It hadn't been her intention to prove something to him by braving a blizzard to make it home, but she thinks she may have anyway.

"Kate, whether we would have spent this Christmas together or apart, it still would have been special to me." He takes one of her cold hands from between her thighs, where she'd trapped them to keep warm, and encompasses her chilled skin, her brittle bones, in the warmth of his palms. "I'm rebuilding traditions with my family and I know that I have you instead of wondering where you are, what _we_ are. I knew you were coming home, regardless of the time, whether you would have made it for Christmas dinner or not. I knew you were coming back as soon as the storm calmed, and that's enough for me."

Kate knocks her forehead into his shoulder, buries her cold nose in the soft fabric of his sweater and sighs her relief as he snakes his arm around her waist, draws her into the haven of his chest instead. They can't stay this way long, not when his mother and daughter are waiting in the next room, but she savors the seconds in his embrace, in the reassurance she hadn't known she'd so badly needed.

"Go step into a hot shower," Castle mumbles against her temple, brushing his lips along the frozen shell of her ear. "We've got the time."

"Not if you join me," she chuckles, grinning into the covered bone of his clavicle when his chest rumbles with laughter beneath her cheek.

"I meant we had enough time before dinner for _you_ to shower, without my help, even though you know I would love to assist."

"Mm, I was expecting a _thorough defrosting_ ," she quotes, easing back to smirk up at him.

"Later, Beckett," he promises her, rubbing his hands up and down her arms, trying to create friction beneath the fabric of the turtleneck she had worn to work, but it does little good, and Kate rises from the bed to strip the black material from her body.

"Oh yes, I have plans for later," she assures him, even though the purposeful husk of her voice is ruined by the quiver of her vocal cords, still lined with ice.

Her frame shivers violently at the lack of coverage, the bare exposure to the air, but Castle is already stepping up beside her, smoothing his hands over the chilled patches of flesh, walking her into the bathroom and flipping the switch on the wall that activates the heated tiles of the flooring.

"I love this bathroom," she admits, shimmying free of her pants while Rick chuckles, starts the shower and adjusts the temperature for her.

Kate pulls her hair up into a bun atop her head, planning only to warm her flesh, maybe slather on some of that vanilla scented soap Castle seemed to enjoy tasting on her skin, so she could avoid putting dinner on hold any longer than she may have already.

"I'll be in the bedroom, drinking your hot chocolate," he informs her, smudging a kiss to her mouth, grazing his hands over her naked back, skating over goosebumps that intensify at his touch. "Call if you need me."

"If we didn't have a holiday dinner to attend, I'd need you now," she lets slip, nipping at his bottom lip even as he growls in rebuke.

"Take your shower now, torture me later."

"Good compromise," she hums on a laugh, disengaging from the furnace of his body to strip the last of her clothing from her skin and step through the steamed door of the shower, feeling Castle's eyes on her the entire time.

* * *

Kate emerges from the bathroom to find the bedroom empty and her mug of cocoa half empty on the nightstand. The effects of walking through a snowstorm with too little protection still lick at her limbs, lace through her bones similar to how it had for days after they'd narrowly escaped succumbing to death slowly in a freezer, but the shower, the scald of hot water to her skin, had helped far more than it had back then and she moved across the room to the walk-in closet without shivering too harshly.

Beckett plucks the pretty sweater dress she had set aside the night before, trailing her fingers over the impulsive purchase from yesterday that clung to her frame with its soft, burgundy fabric, and dropping the towel to the floor. The Castle Christmas Eve dinners that she had been a part of had never been formal and she knew she could have slid into her coziest sweatpants, one of Castle's shirts, just as easily and no one at the table would mind. But Alexis and Martha always looked lovely, Rick looked dashing, delectable really, and once she's encased her legs in black tights, stepped into her favorite pair of matching stilettos, she feels like she can once again fit seamlessly into the tradition, like she belongs in it.

"Hey," Castle greets with a wide smile, bounding into the room as she emerges from the closet, coming to stand alongside her in front of the full length mirror while she twines her hair into a loose braid, the waves still damp and dilapidated from the snow. "You look stunning."

"Pretty handsome yourself," she returns, threading their fingers when his hand splays at her waist.

"Better?" he inquires, coasting his other hand along her arm, smoothing over the knit fabric of the long sleeve.

Kate leans back into his chest, admires the picture they make in the mirror. "Much. Dinner ready?"

"Yep, was just coming to get you."

"Good, I'm starving."

Kate leads him by the link of their hands towards the bedroom doorway, out through the office to the living room, his chuckle of amusement earning the attention of both his mother and daughter. Martha beams at her, gushes over her attire, while Alexis takes her seat, nodding her silent approval in Kate's direction.

"Everything looks wonderful."

"Oh doesn't it?" Martha exclaims, sliding into her chair beside Alexis. The table is set, the food arranged on everyone's plates, laid out across the middle of the elegant mahogany table, available for self-serving. His mother is already pouring wine into all of their glasses, twittering on about how magnificent the loft looks while Castle pulls out Kate's chair for her, slips in next to her once she's seated. "And it's just so marvelous to have us all back together again, I could just-"

"Mother," Castle huffs when she begins to wipe at the corners of her eyes with her napkin, but Kate recognizes the genuine sheen to his mother's eyes, the tear inducing joy of sitting down to a table surrounded by family, the peace of being together again with no strain or uncertainty hanging in the air.

"No, she's right," Kate adds, smiling softly at Martha from across the table. "It's perfect."

"I agree," Alexis chimes in, lifting her glass to the air. "Cheers to… to being home for Christmas again.

Their glasses clink and when Kate glances to her side, she notices Castle is suddenly the one looking a little teary-eyed. Alexis and Martha have shifted their attentions to their plates, exchanging hums of satisfaction and praise, and Kate reaches for his knee beneath the table, offers the bone a gentle squeeze.

"Merry Christmas, Castle."

Rick lifts her hand from his knee, draws her knuckles to his lips and grins back at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling, the joy in his gaze shining like the dazzling lights on the tree, every defense he had held onto gone for the night, and it's… breathtaking.

"You two stop gazing at each other and eat your dinner before it goes cold," Martha chastises with a knowing smile and Castle acquiesces his mother's demand, but doesn't let go of her hand.

* * *

The storm outside has quieted in its severity, the flakes from the sky softening to slow falling flurries, but Castle insists that his mother mimic Alexis's holiday plans, stay the night in her old room upstairs once the evening comes to an end.

"Don't stay up late, you two," Castle calls after the two of them from the living room, chattering on their way up the stairs in the same fashion Kate can remember from her years of living with the two other women. "Santa won't come if you aren't asleep."

Alexis rolls her eyes, but she's laughing at him as she ascends the stairs with her grandmother.

"We'll do our best to stay on the nice list, Dad," Alexis placates. "Try to do the same."

He huffs as they disappear down the upstairs hallway, calling out their goodnights and Merry Christmases before the clicks of doors closing resound through the loft and the quiet somnolence of the night is all that remains.

After dinner, after Alexis's white chocolate torte had been served for dessert and the table had been cleared, Rick had set up the projector screen in the living room, started a marathon of all the best Christmas films. They had lounged on the couch for hours, Castle in the middle with Alexis tucked into one side of his body and Kate against the other while his mother claimed the coziest armchair, catching up, quoting classics, falling back into their roles of the tentative family they had once been.

It had been an even better Christmas Eve than she could have hoped for, but midnight had struck, Christmas was here, and she wanted to give Castle his first present.

"That's unfortunate," Kate sighs at his back, lacing her arms around his waist from behind and propping her chin to the juncture between his neck and shoulder. "I was going to keep you up late tonight. And what I planned to do with you would most definitely get you on the naughty list."

Tension ripples up his spine and Castle turns in her arms, arousal contending with the jubilation that's twinkled through the lustrous blues of his eyes all evening, turning the cerulean hues to twilight.

"Kinda think I'm already on that list after what we did under the tree last-"

"Castle," she hushes, giggling against his mouth, hating herself for the sound, but unable to stop it. He turns her into such a girl.

She walks him backwards, bracing her hands on his chest and teasing at his mouth, stroking her tongue along the seam, suckling at his bottom lip until he's groaning, grasping at the hem of her dress, scraping his fingernails along the barrier of her tights.

"Unwrapping you is going to be a process," he grumbles, but Kate is already shaking her head, guiding him through the entryway to their bedroom and nudging the door shut with her foot.

"You're not unwrapping me," she huffs, nipping at the corner of his mouth when he whines his protest. "Not yet."

"But I thought you were my present."

"Not in this. And present for tonight, better present tomorrow."

"As I stated previously, there is no better gift than having you for Christmas," he assures her, distractedly, gliding his hands beneath her dress, palming the taut muscles of her ass and hooking his thumbs in the waistband of her tights. "And I promised you a thorough defrosting so-"

Kate catches his hands, holding his wrists hostage and using the boost of her heels to reach his ear, take the soft skin of his earlobe between her teeth.

"Go wait in the bed. Take off your clothes," she murmurs, releasing his wrists and skimming her fingers along the button of his jeans. "I'll be right there."

Castle stumbles back, obeying without much of a choice, and she disappears into the closet, checking over her shoulder to ensure he hasn't followed as she withdraws the shopping bag from her hiding spot. She replaces her heels on the shoe rack, peels the tights from her legs, and rids her body of the dress, slipping into the sheer red lace. It isn't their first time together since their reconciliation, not even close, but it was the first time she had dressed up for him like this in a long while.

Kate pauses near the doorway, just out of sight, and frees her hair from its braid, attempting to soothe the sudden shyness welling in the pit of her stomach as she combs her fingers through her tangled strands. She can't remember the last time she was _shy_ in the bedroom with him.

"Kate?" he calls, his voice soft as it reaches her ears, slightly concerned, and the nerves dissipate. "Are you okay in there?"

"Yeah," she murmurs, stepping out into view, watching his lips part and his eyes widen, the last of the light overwhelmed by the deep blue of desire.

"Oh, you were right," he breathes out as she approaches the bed, the soft white trim grazing the tops of her thighs. "You are always worth waiting for."

The last of the ice melts from her veins, washed away by the lava of her blood as Castle's gaze roams her body, the building need in his eyes drawing her in close, close enough for him to touch. And just to jerk him into movement, to satisfy the devastating hunger and give him the control, she says it anyway.

"Warm me up, Castle."


	15. Chapter 15

"Kate," he's calling softly in her ear, whispering his lips along the shell, dusting them lower to kiss the skin beneath that has her stirring, burying her face in her pillow as his mouth curls into a smile over the lazy thud of her pulse. The remnants of her nightmares fade, those same dreams of freezing to death with him in an icebox slowly retracting their icy tendrils from her mind, melting beneath the heat of him at her back. "Kate, wake up, it's Christmas."

She hums, reaches back for the hand she can feel tripping along her thigh, tugging his fingers up to hold to her chest and draw the blanket of his body in closer. With the beat of his heart at her shoulder blade, the fit of his knee between her thighs, and the cradle of his body so expansive, so warm and all surrounding, behind her, she could so easily drift back to sleep, doze in peace for the rest of the day.

"Wait, when did you put on clothes?" Castle asks in horror, sliding his fingers from beneath the grip of hers to survey the plaid shirt now covering her body. "And why my clothes? Why not the babydoll from last night?"

"Cold," she mumbles, forcing her eyes to peel back, blinking away the sleep and adjusting to the gentle glow of the winter sun spilling light into their bedroom. "Woke up at 5 to use the bathroom, stole your shirt from the door."

"I thought I kept you warm," Castle rumbles at her back and she lifts her head from the pillow to catch a glimpse of his face over his shoulder, to see the waggle of his brow and the smug satisfaction in his smile.

"You did, until you fell asleep, stole all the blankets."

"Liar," he gasps, rising on his elbow to gape down at her. "The blanket thief in this relationship always has and always will be you."

Kate rolls her eyes and abandons her comfortable position on her side to roll to her back, stretching her limbs and arching her spine.

"Can we make this our new tradition?" Castle murmurs, combing the mess of her hair back from her face, tracing his thumb along the curve of her eyebrow. "Well, this is basically how we spent all of our other Christmases, so maybe _renew_ this tradition?"

"Christmas Eve sex and a lazy morning after in bed?" she inquires, quirking her brow beneath his thumb.

" _Festive_ Christmas Eve sex. But yes, that is essentially what I meant."

Kate chuckles, sitting up in bed beside him. "Sure, Castle. May have to adjust the last part in the future, though. Kids wake up _early_ for Christmas."

She's already sliding out of the bed, her gaze trained on the bathroom doorway, but she knows what she's done, what door she just opened without any proper preparation, but it's a conversation she wants to have, even if for only a handful of minutes. Castle catches her hand, just as she'd known he would, allows her to drag him out bed and towards the bathroom along with her.

"They - they do," he confirms, following her into the en suite, but trapping her against the wall before she can complete her journey to the shower. "You're thinking about kids?"

"I think about our future," she admits, leaning her back into the cool tile of the wall, laying her hands over his bare hips as he boxes her in. "We have a lot of other things to think about before we even consider kids, but I know I want them with you."

"Them? As - as in plural?"

He's stuttering, staring down at her in shock and awe and disbelief, searching her eyes for something, for signs of a joke or hints of uncertainty, but she has nothing left to hide.

"I imagine us with just one usually, a boy, and I - he has your eyes, your spirit," she continues, a little more than she had planned to say, but the yearning in his gaze tells her it was the right choice to share this with him, to tell a story of her own. She had never confessed to him, not even before she had allowed a case to divide them, that the images of a family with him, of a little boy with his striking blue eyes, his overflowing heart, often lingered like daydreams in her head. They had never discussed children, not seriously, but she had always known that it had stopped being an _if_ a long time ago. "But I'd be just as happy with two if it felt right. I'd be happy regardless of what we decided."

Castle covers her hand when it skims up the path of his torso, rests above the hammering blows of his heart against his ribs, and crushes her fingers within the curl of his.

"I've always imagined a little girl," he whispers, and she realizes that this is a secret, one that he's kept from her, something precious and delicate that he hadn't yet trusted her with until now. "A little you with kaleidoscope eyes and a gorgeous smile that she has to grow into, with the kind of compassion that promises great things and an independent streak that will drive us both crazy."

Her heart snags, catches harshly in the bones of her ribs, and the butterflies this conversation has brought to life in her stomach flutter up to inhabit her chest, tickling her lungs, turning breathing into a struggle.

"How long have you been picturing this?" she gets out, her voice hoarse with it, but he's stolen all of the air from her lungs and she's lucky she can speak at all.

"I - um, longer than I'd like to admit," he responds, his shoulder lifting in a sheepish gesture, but his heart is beating hard beneath her hand. "I had tried not to think about it while we - while you were gone, for obvious reasons, but then I tried writing about Nikki and Rook one night and ended up writing scenes of them with kids and the images became so clear-"

Her arms rise to lock around his neck and Kate is surging up on her toes to embrace him, to apologize with the seal of her body to his for all of those nights spent alone with his laptop, writing about hopes for a future that had nearly slipped through their fingers and dreams that had turned to nothing more than fantasy because of her. Rick hugs her back, practically lifts her from her toes, and allows the acceptance, the forgiveness she continues to earn, to seep from the kiss he presses to her temple.

"We'll have that future one day, Castle," she promises him, brushing the reassurance to his cheek and pulling back to see him, to witness the shimmering quality hiding in the dark depths of his eyes. "This is just the beginning. We're still in the early chapters of our life together, our story."

"Using more book metaphors on me, Beckett?" he teases, blinking away the threat of moisture, loosening the embrace of his arms around her to draw his hands up between them, to the three buttons holding his shirt together across her body.

"Thought you might like that," she grins, rolling her shoulders once the cool air of the bathroom slips between the parted edges of the shirt, allowing it to slip from her body. Kate steps backwards, over the fabric pooled on the tile, and guides him with her into the shower.

"You know me well, and for the record…" Rick reaches for the shower nozzles, sets the temperature to the steamy heat he knows she prefers, and steps beneath the spray with her. "As long as my future includes you, I'll be riveted until the very last chapter."

The smile on his lips is playful, his eyes dancing with laughter, but she knows he means it, that every word is true, and Kate stains a kiss to his mouth, sips the water droplets from his lips, and backs him into the shower wall.

"Gotta make breakfast soon," Castle mumbles, making no move to stop her, hooking her leg high at his waist instead. "Christmas-"

"We're going to have to work on time management for these traditions," she hums, rocking her hips forward.

"Don't worry." He spins her, presses her back against the warmed tile wall, and steals the gasp from her lips. "We'll figure it out before we have the kids."

* * *

Castle leaves her to wash her hair, to take her time while he starts breakfast before his mother and daughter can wake, and she uses the opportunity to rehearse the words she wants to say to him when she presents him with her gift in a matter of hours that will pass like quicksand.

Kate fiddles with the ring around her finger once she's blown her hair dry, acquired her underwear and her most comfortable pair of leggings that Castle often scowls over, always preferring a looser form of pants that simply slip from her body at the tug of his fingers. The long-sleeved shirt she had planned to tug on hangs from her fingers, but she forfeits it at the sight of the ratty NYPD t-shirt folded amidst Rick's clothing. She scoops it up from the partially opened drawer to his bureau, rubs the material between her fingertips, relishing in the soft comfort of her favorite t-shirt.

The worn, too thin fabric glides over her head, engulfs her in the scent of him, welcomes her home. It's not enough to keep her warm, though, and Kate grabs his robe from the armchair near the bed, grins to herself in the solitude of their bedroom before heading out to find him and his family.

Alexis is already perched at the breakfast bar, still in her pajamas and sipping from a cup of coffee, nibbling on a cinnamon roll between swallows. She smiles around her mug when she notices Kate approaching them, sleep still heavy in her eyes, and Kate squeezes her arm as she passes, hums her approval at the extravagant looking plate of fruit and breakfast casserole that Castle places in front of his daughter.

"That smells amazing," Kate murmurs, coming up behind him at the stove, releasing a small breath of laughter when his hand lifts before she can reach him, holds out a steaming cup of coffee to her. "Thanks, babe."

"You're going to love the coffee, Kate," Alexis comments, perking up a little from across the bar. "It's a Christmas brew and has this subtle peppermint flavor. So good."

"Oh, didn't you make this for me once?" Kate asks him as she takes an experimental sip of the holiday flavored coffee, savoring the burst of peppermint on her tongue, accompanying the hint of her beloved vanilla.

"Ah, no. That was a gingerbread latte that I made you the last time we had Christmas together," he recalls, no longer stumbling over the mention of the last Christmas they had spent as a couple, eliciting no ill form of response from Alexis, and Kate breathes a little easier against the rim of her mug. "I'll make you one of those later, after we do presents."

Kate drapes herself at his back, lays her cheek to his shoulder and cradles her coffee at her stomach. He continues to tend to the mixture of eggs and vegetables mixed in with multiple cheeses and scattered bits of bacon in the delicious dish he's made for breakfast a couple of times before, for special occasions, still cooling atop the stove.

"Where's Martha?" she inquires, lifting her eyes to the stairs, but finding no sign of the matriarch.

"Oh she's awake," Alexis informs them, piercing her plate of casserole with her fork. "Grams just refuses to come down without doing her full face of makeup for the day first."

"It could be _hours_ ," Castle groans and Kate pinches his side for it, listens to Alexis laugh when he jumps at the rebuke, reaches back to smack her thigh with an oven mitt.

Kate drops a kiss to the back of his neck where his shirt doesn't cover, steps up beside him to claim a plate of the mouthwatering breakfast he's made, and takes her meal to climb onto the stool beside Alexis at the counter.

Martha joins them half an hour later, still in silk red pajamas and a matching robe with unfurling designs of gold along the fabric, her hair styled perfectly, her makeup done with care, and Castle teases her as he relinquishes her plate before finally filling his own. He and his mother eat while Kate and Alexis chat over their second servings of coffee, going over Alexis's recent cases from the P.I firm, how they've become even crazier during the holiday season.

"Last week we were booked solid and I had a few clients who even asked me to work through Christmas, which is just ridiculous. I've hardly even had time to spend with-" Alexis's jaw snaps shut, a sheepish smile claiming her lips, and Kate quirks her eyebrow in intrigue.

"With whom?"

Alexis glances past Beckett's shoulder, ensuring her father is thoroughly immersed in his conversation with Martha, and leans her head in a fraction closer. "I haven't really had the chance to discuss this with Dad, given the circumstances, but well… there's this guy, Ethan, and I've been seeing him for a few months now. It's pretty serious, which just…" Alexis glances down to her fidgeting fingers, picking at her thumbnail. "Makes it pretty scary as well."

"Scary?" Kate echoes, cupping her cooling mug between her palms, offering Alexis her full attention. She had discussed the topics of boys and relationships with Alexis in the past, played the role of confidant when Alexis needed a listening ear that wasn't her father or her grandmother. "Are things moving too fast?"

"It's not that, it's just - I like him, but in the back of my mind, I know he isn't 'the one', you know?" Alexis murmurs, diverting her eyes to her half empty cup, trailing her finger along the rim. "I know I'm still young and this… it's stupid, but despite everything, after seeing how much you and my dad have gone through, the fact that you're still together now after the past two years? I want something that strong, that certain. I want that difficult, life-changing person that's worth fighting for. I want someone who looks at me like Dad looks at you."

"It took me a long time to find your dad," Kate replies, attempting to hide the surprise she can feel flaring quick and strong in her chest at Alexis's confession. Her story with Castle is nothing short of extraordinary in Beckett's eyes, but she had been certain that Alexis had thought the exact opposite of their relationship, that she must see it as a tragedy rather than the great love story Kate believed it to be. "But the timing couldn't have been better. It's not the answer you want, I know, but you still have so much time to find the love of your life, your last. If you enjoy being with Ethan now, that's great. It doesn't mean that he has to be your always."

Alexis's lips twitch in the corners. "You've always called him that."

"Who?"

"My dad," Alexis explains with a chuckle and oh, she feels Castle's attention fade from Martha's voice and swing towards them at that, undoubtedly tuned in to their conversation now. "When we used to talk about guys throughout those first years of college, you gave me that reassurance a lot, that I would find my _always_ when the time was right."

"Oh." Kate feels her cheeks flush with embarrassment, lifting her palm to cover one of them before Alexis can notice the spread of pink. "I hadn't realized I'd made that a reoccurring phrase."

"Makes sense," Alexis shrugs and she's well aware that even though Castle's guard may be down, his daughter's is still up and strong, but the look in Alexis's eyes is soft now, gentling from a glistening ice to a gentle baby blue. "That's your word, isn't it?"

"Weren't we talking about you and Ethan?"

"Who is Ethan?" Castle turns towards them in his seat and Alexis huffs, shooting Kate a playful glare.

"You did that on purpose."

"No idea what you mean," Kate hums, sliding from the barstool with her mug, retreating from the breakfast bar to deposit her empty plate in the sink, smiling as she rinses the remains from her dish and listens to Castle grill his daughter while Martha sighs dramatically into her eggnog.

It felt like home again.

* * *

Castle retrieves all four of their stockings from above the fireplace, cradling them in the crook of his arm while Kate hands out presents from beneath the tree, depositing Alexis's at her feet and Martha's gifts into her lap. She's puzzled to find that there are few for Rick beneath the evergreen, nothing more than a slim envelope that was from both Alexis and Martha according to the writing on the candy cane colored paper.

"I insisted that I didn't want anything this year," he explains when she hands him the single envelope with a furrowed brow, plopping down onto the sofa and patting the cushioning beside him.

Kate descends to the couch, curls into his side with her stocking against her chest and Castle's arm around her shoulders. He nudges at the red velvet filled to the brim, but she wants to watch first, to soak in the scene around her just as she had every year before. The concept of Christmas had been foreign to her for so long that she'd often had to sit back and experience the Castle's household traditions from a distance before embracing them, allowing them to become her own. After two years, she would likely have to start the process all over again, but she doesn't mind, happy to watch from the sidelines, to smile at all of the excitement blossoming through the living room.

Alexis rips through wrapping paper and empties the contents of her stocking into her lap, beaming and giggling with delight like the girl she met nearly ten years ago, still an innocent at heart. Martha ooh's and ah's throughout the unwrapping of her gifts from the three of them, trying on the sapphire earrings from Rick and the vibrant green scarf from Kate, spritzing the perfume from Alexis onto her neck.

"You should open your gift," Castle encourages, plucking the small box from the top of her stocking, the sole gift for her that had been beneath the tree with her name written in the block letters of his handwriting on the tag. It was the only present with her name on it, much to his mother and daughter's embarrassment, but Christmas had come together so suddenly for them this year, her presence unexpected, and it wasn't as if she had wanted any gifts to begin with.

Castle had yet to open the envelope from his mother and daughter, but he had dug through the stocking filled with Christmas treats and gag gifts with her plastered to his side, smudged his grin to her cheek when he'd come across the holiday themed bath bombs she had collaborated with Alexis to add to his stocking. She was still waiting to present him with her true gift, waiting for the laughter to die down and for the moment to feel right.

Kate accepts the palm-sized present, swathed in sky blue wrapping paper with glittering white snowflakes, a choice she has a feeling Alexis took part in. He's watching her intently as she sits up and takes her time peeling back the paper, revealing a velvet blue jewelry box within.

She shoots him a quizzical look. They were already married, so it couldn't be a ring, but for him to be awaiting her reaction with bated breath, with hope and hesitation twining through his gaze, it couldn't be any ordinary piece of jewelry. Whatever was inside this box held importance.

The box pops open with ease when she presses her thumb to the seam and her heart seizes for a split second at the sight of his wedding ring inside, the irrational fear that he was giving it back surging in her chest before realization soothes the uproar.

"I want you to hold onto that for the next couple of days," Castle murmurs. "Until we reach your dad's cabin, where I planned a ceremony for us to renew our vows."

"Rick," she breathes out, grazing her thumb over the familiar wedding band, the one that matches the ring on her left hand. The one he's been without for the last few months.

"I know it's last minute, just like our wedding, and maybe it's a little silly, but I-"

"No," she cuts him off, clutching his ring to her chest and finally tearing her eyes away from the band, back up to him. "No, Castle, this - it's perfect. After everything... I'd love to renew our vows."

His entire face lights up, as if he had actually expected her to find his proposal 'silly', and Kate shifts onto her knees to kiss him, hopes he can feel the sheer joy leaking from her smile, the gratitude sealing against his lips.

"I'm just sorry that my gift won't work now."

Rick's brow furrows, his hand on her shoulder squeezing in askance. "What's wrong with your gift? Wait, what gift?"

"I..." She glances down to her own ring, gleaming on her finger proud and true, and sighs. "I was going to re-propose to you."

His eyes go wide, his smile parting in delighted surprise, and then he's dragging her into his lap, wrapping her in his embrace, and laughing softly, so tender and earnest, into her hair. "You were going to propose?"

"Down on one knee and everything, Rick Castle," she chuckles, her smile against his neck and her fingers fisting in his hair. But no, she had planned an entire speech, so many words that had almost slipped her mind in this wondrous moment, and still needed to be said. Kate draws back just enough to see him, to lift her fingers to his cheek and dust her thumb beneath his vibrant blue eyes. "I had planned to tell you that every word from our wedding vows is still true, that those words and the meaning behind them never changed, even when we did."

Kate glances down to the ring still pressed against her chest and lowers her hand from his cheek to caress the white gold with her thumb.

"You still teach me so much about myself, about what it means to love someone with all of your heart, with all that you have," she begins, pressing a fist to her stomach to stop the nerves. These are words she's said to him before, a variation of the same vows, and yet now, they feel even more vital than they had that day in the Hamptons, in front of his mother and daughter, her father and the officiant.

He needed to know that this time, her words would last.

"You are still the strength to my vulnerability, the person I want to spend every day of my life with, and I know we've been through this, but I can't say enough that I'm so – I'm sorry that I ever made you doubt that." She swallows, flickering her eyes between his gaze, both encouraging and affectionate, thirsty with longing for her words, and the box containing his ring in her hands. "I didn't do our vows the justice they deserved over the last two years and I want to spend the rest of our lives making up for every moment spent apart, replacing those memories with new ones. I want a lifetime with you, Rick, and for you to trust in the promise that I will do everything in my power to never again let anything come between us."

"Nothing can," he murmurs, his voice nothing more than a whispered rasp between them, reminding her that they have an audience. Half of which is sniffling. "I promised you on our wedding day 'til death do us part', but I don't even think that could do it, Kate. We're inevitable and we don't end. Am I making you cry?"

"No. Shut up," she huffs, swiping at one of her eyes while he smiles back at her, brushes a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Well, I know I am," Martha calls from the armchair, dabbing at the corners of her eyes, attempting to dry her tears with the fan of her hand.

Alexis is silent from the opposite armchair near the tree and Kate can't see her, but she notices Rick share a look with his daughter from over her shoulder, a glance that makes his eyes glimmer like the ocean on a summer day.

"If this would have gone as planned, I would have asked for your ring," Kate explains, extracting the wedding band from the cushioning of box's interior with gentle fingers and reaching for his left hand, stroking her thumb along the knuckle of his fourth finger. "And if you'd said yes-"

"Which you already know I would have."

"Then I would have done this." Kate bites her lip and aligns the ring with his finger, slides the band along the bone until it sits comfortably where it had before, where it belongs. "And then I would have told you that I love you, Castle."

She's grateful for the hand in her hair that cradles her skull as he leans in to kiss her, for the echo of his love in the ardency of his lips. Kate pulls back at the sudden applause, undoubtedly from his mother, and stays him with a hand to his chest when he moves to chase her mouth. Rick settles for the touch of his forehead to hers, the knot of his fingers still in her hair, his ring catching in the strands.

"And this all makes our gift quite perfect," Martha chimes in, nodding to the envelope still in Castle's lap, tucked beneath Kate's thigh. She retrieves the envelope sheepishly, hands it to Castle to open and finally risks a look in Alexis's direction.

His daughter is already smiling back at her.

"A week long pass to… travel?" Rick reads, lifting quizzical eyes to his mother and daughter. He offers Kate a glimpse of the handwritten letter, the gift cards to a random assortment of restaurants and cafés, stores that she knows Castle loves to shop for all of the best new toys in, and a map of America, Europe, even Australia included inside.

"Gram and I talked with Gina, who cleared all of your meetings until January 4th, giving you a full week to go wherever and do whatever you want. It's been awhile since you've had a vacation that wasn't a book tour, Dad."

"And _now_ , it can be a second honeymoon for the two of you," Martha beams, clapping her hands together, and though reluctant, Alexis nods her agreement.

"That's so thoughtful," Kate murmurs, disentangling from Castle's arms to rise from the sofa, to embrace his mother first, and then Alexis, who stands to hug her properly.

"I trust you," Alexis whispers before Kate can withdraw from the quick hold, her arms around Kate's shoulders squeezing, and she realizes that Alexis may not have bought her a gift for Christmas, but she was giving her one now. "I believe you now."

"Thank you," Kate gets out, pulling back and offering a returning squeeze to his daughter's hand.

"Yes, Mother, Alexis, this was a perfect gift," Castle pipes up. "Thank you both."

He's still seated on the sofa, the ring on his finger gleaming in the shimmer of Christmas lights, the contents of the envelope strewn across his lap and the joy on his face luminescent. He looks like a little boy on Christmas morning and Kate has to return to him, press her lips to the apple of his cheek. Castle hooks an arm around her the moment she does, smears a kiss to the curve of her shoulder once she sinks back into his side.

"Perfect Christmas," he whispers, swaying into her. Kate steadies him with a hand to his neck, but shifts in closer, obeys her body's demand for nearness, and sighs at the simmer of warmth through her blood, the sensation of her heart being cocooned in a sense of peacefulness she thought she had lost.

Alexis begins to set up her laptop, attempting to clue Martha in on the latest features added to the top of the line brand Castle had ensured to buy for her, and Kate brushes a kiss to the corner of his mouth before resting her head to his shoulder. This is so much more than she could have imagined, so much more than she would have ever dared to hope for less than a single month ago when he had agreed to see her again after too long without, when he had so graciously agreed to allow her back into his life, tentatively back into his heart. Her home.

She's been living in the loft for more than a week now, but in this moment, tucked into his side on Christmas morning, his hand twining with hers over her thigh, purposely clinking their wedding rings together – this is what coming home truly feels like.


	16. Chapter 16

They drive to her father's cabin two days later, leaving in the morning with promises from Alexis and his mother to see them in time for the afternoon ceremony. Rick had assured her that it would be a small affair, similar to their wedding, adding only their immediate family from the precinct this time around.

She allows Castle to drive the nondescript, black sedan he had purchased a short time after the Mercedes had met its demise on their original wedding date. The larger vehicle made him feel safer, well protected and in control, and Kate was content to curl up in the passenger seat, allow him to navigate the busy roads. Since their mutual 're-proposals' on Christmas Day, they had been getting far too little sleep - not that she minded, not _at all_ – and relaxing through the two hour trip gave her the time she needed to shake her sleep deprived state, give acknowledgement to the festering excitement swirling like eager butterflies in her stomach.

"Have you decided where you want our second honeymoon to take place?" Kate murmurs, her cheek pressing against the leather of the seat as she turns to look at him, her fingers rising on their own accord to dust over the ascending corner of his mouth, the parentheses bracketing his lips and the branches of crows' feet extending from the corner of his eye. The evidence of his joy written in his skin.

"We never had our island getaway," he muses, retracting his hand from the steering wheel to drape his palm at one of her pointed knees, squeezing the bone beneath her jeans. "But I was thinking we should probably save that for the summer."

"Mm, yeah, run away to paradise when the heat wave rolls into the city," she agrees, teasing her fingers between the spaces of his, stroking the thin skin stretched across his knuckles.

"Exactly," he praises, snagging her fingers, ensnarling them in the knot of his before releasing, returning his hand to the steering wheel. "And honestly, I'm not in the mood to travel far right now, so I was thinking-"

"This should be good."

"What about the Hamptons? You've never seen the place in the winter, it's stunning," Castle raves, his eyes glossing over with the imagery in his head. "It's different from the summer, of course, but it's more... more peaceful. Instead of the beach, we can lounge in the hot tub, cuddle up by that massive fireplace in the living room, maybe even do a bonfire at some point if it isn't too cold, make s'mores-"

"Castle." The amusement has faded from her lips, that reverent wonder he always manages to evoke from the depths of her chest, a sensation she had been certain died long ago, arising to compensate. "That sounds perfect."

"Suitable enough for a second honeymoon?" he inquires, an eyebrow arching to mask the uncertainty she can sense, quiet but there, and Kate nods, checks the road before stealing his hand back, smearing a brief kiss to his knuckles.

"Yes, I love the Hamptons house and I want to experience it during this time of year."

Rick grins at her, brushes his thumb along the inside of her wrist, the thud of her pulse. "It's settled then. After we drive back tomorrow morning, we'll pack up again, head to the Hamptons tomorrow night."

"And maybe we could do something for New Year's, see if your mom and Alexis want to join us, my dad and some family from the Twelfth," she suggests, hiding behind the drape of her hair when he beams at her so brilliantly, lighting up like the elusive sunlight on this grey winter day.

"I'd like that, I think they would too. And speaking of your dad, he texted me a few minutes ago, says he already has a fresh pot of coffee waiting," Castle assures her when he catches her frowning at her empty travel mug in her hand. "As well as lunch."

"And a fire I hope," Kate yawns, stretching in the passenger seat. They've already exited the highway, taken the secluded road to her dad's cabin that Rick has only visited a handful of times before. She hadn't expected him to enjoy the place like she did, the entire experience of living in the woods so different from any he's ever had, but she's aware of her husband's soft spot for the cabin, his appreciation of the absolute privacy, how he savors the solitude, the solace.

"Not warm enough there?" he teases her, tugging on the edge of the fleece she had pulled up to her chin despite the heater flooding the car with hot air and layers of clothing she wears. Alexis had left it in the backseat after their last long road trip and curled up in the seat next to him with a blanket, listening to Castle's dramatic renditions of the Christmas songs still consuming the radio stations, had proven to be the perfect way to start her day, to stay warm with laughter.

"We can't all be human furnaces like you," she mutters, unfurling her legs from the seat as the cabin comes into view.

Her father was already out on the front porch, a smile forming at the corners of his mouth as they pull into the snow-blanketed driveway. Jim steps away from the stacks of firewood arranged on the porch and starts towards the sedan once Castle kills the ignition, opening the driver's side door and exiting the vehicle. Kate takes one last breath of the leftover warmth still encased within the car, bracing her lungs for the winter chill that waits to invade the caverns of her chest the second she joins Castle and her dad.

Kate pushes the door open when she notices Rick waiting for her on the other side, accepts the gloved hand he holds out to her and grins up at him as he adjusts the beanie on her head, easing it down to cover her ears.

"Okay?" he murmurs, squeezing her fingers while she nods, casting her eyes to the trees in the near distance, the welcome sight of the woods decorated in the white coat of snow, their naked branches bowing towards her in greeting under the gentle nip of the winter breeze.

"Mm, a little chilly," she admits, the snow crunching beneath her boots as they approach Jim Beckett. "But it's nice today, that sharp kind of cold."

"I'm assuming this would feel heavenly after venturing through a blizzard two days ago," Castle mumbles at her side, just as they reach her father and his rising brow.

"What blizzard?" Jim inquires with a narrowed gaze in her direction, but Kate relinquishes Castle's hand to embrace her father, smiling against his shoulder when he wraps his arms around her, holds her tight.

"Tell you later."

Kate steps back, makes room for the handshake the two men share, the hug that her dad pulls Castle into that has her smile stretching, cracking her chapped lips.

"Did the setup go okay?" Rick asks, glancing around her dad, towards the cabin.

"Setup?" Kate echoes, but Jim is already nodding.

"Yep, they came by yesterday morning, had it done within a matter of hours. I did a walkthrough afterwards, it looks pretty spectacular, son."

She has no idea what they're talking about, but Castle is practically beaming beside her, the curve of his lips so pleased and proud and the light in his eyes sparkling.

They climb the porch steps, her dad a step ahead and already opening the cabin door to them, the warmth of a fire and the aroma of coffee filtering through her senses. Her father has lunch laid out on the quant kitchen table, grilled sandwiches by the looks of it, and her stomach grumbles softly in anticipation, but Rick is guiding her towards the sliding glass doors off the living room.

"You two go check it out," Jim calls, breaking away from the two of them to tend to the fire crackling in the living room, casting a flickering orange glow onto the wooden walls.

Kate doesn't attempt to resist, but her brow knits as Castle guides her back outside, the excitement seeming to bubble from beneath the layers of his clothes. "We'll get the bags and everything in just a minute, but I want you to see this first."

"See what? Where are we-"

"Look up."

Kate tears her eyes away from his profile, the crinkles of his eyes and the crooked edge of his smile in the silver light of the sun peeking out from between grey clouds, and glances in the direction of his gaze, comes to a halt on the last step of the back porch.

"Castle," she breathes, stepping further out into the backyard, dragging him along by the link of their hands and marveling over the large white tent that covers the stretch of her father's property that leads out towards the dock.

"Come on, I want you to see the inside," Rick grins, eager like a child, tugging her by the hand and leading her towards the entryway to the tent, guiding her through a pair of French double doors and into the pavilion.

She's shocked to be met with the embrace of indoor heating, even warmer than the cabin at their backs. Outside, the tent appeared expansive, tall and wide, but Kate had expected for the inside to reveal a smaller area, cramped spaces and little room to share with others. She had been wrong.

On the inside, the tent feels massive, the ceiling high and vaulted, the boards lining the ground creating a sturdy foundation that coincides with the planks of her father's dock. Windows line the sides, allowing glimpses of the outside world, the winter wonderland that her dad's cabin is immersed in every year.

The lake is frozen, snow blanketing the ground, but inside the tent is warm, golden and glowing from the Christmas lights strung along the ceiling. Candles flicker on each of the round bistro tables scattered across the floor, decorating the white walls with dancing firelight, and at the far end of the tent, was a slightly higher level of flooring, adorned with an arch that was smaller in size, but reminded her of the same they had wed under in the Hamptons, now twined in lights and strung up snowflakes.

"It's magical," she whispers, weaving her arms around his neck and tearing her gaze away from their survey of the tent, the magnificence of the enclosure, choosing to meet the beauty of his eyes instead. "How did you do this?"

"Why do you think your dad drove up early this year?" he grins, squeezing her waist, circling his thumbs over the bones of her hips. "He supervised while the tent company put everything together, coordinated with me over the phone about it all. Ryan and Espo volunteered to step in as dual interim captains for the following week if the commissioner agreed to give you the time, which they felt confident he would. Lanie helped me with the decorations-"

"You had everyone in on this?" she breathes out, shaking her head in disbelief as the laughter falls from her lips.

"They were more than happy to help," Castle shrugs, running his knuckles up the length of her spine through the fabric of her coat. "Excited even. Everyone even volunteered to bring food. I was going to do catering, but Kevin told me Jenny started cooking early this morning, Lanie promised to make all of your favorites, and I'm pretty sure Mother and Alexis are baking a wedding cake as we speak."

"I'm good with potluck," Kate chuckles, stroking her fingers along his jaw to feel the field of stubble beneath her fingertips, the vibration of the satisfied humming sound he emits from low within his throat. The lighting is kind to him, casting gold along his skin as if they were in the middle of summer instead, turning his eyes into shimmering seas, and she knew that if she kissed his lips, he would taste of sunlight.

"Hope you're good with the wedding playlist on my iPod too because I didn't book a DJ."

She huffs, grazes the jut of his chin with her thumb. "Your music selection worked just fine last time."

His smile goes soft, that reminiscent look as memories of their wedding day swirl through his mind playing out in his eyes, and Kate rises on the toes of her boots, meets his lips with a kiss that thawed any sliver of cold left in her body. She couldn't wait to renew their vows, to reinforce promises and reaffirm her love for him in front of everyone who mattered to them both, but here, enclosed from the beautiful cold outside with him, she wished to extend the moment, to savor this prelude of what's to come.

"I know we'll be doing this again in a few hours," Kate murmurs, dropping back to the soles of her shoes and withdrawing her phone from the inner pocket of her coat, opening up the app that gives access to her music library. Light, breathtaking and glimmering, ripples through his eyes at the start of the song, the soft strum of the guitar and the familiar lyrics that had accompanied them on their wedding day, and Kate tucks her phone into the pocket of his coat, laces her arms around his neck. "But dance with me?"

Castle snakes an arm around her waist, wraps the other around her torso to splay a hand between the wings of her shoulder blades as they sway to the music.

"Kate." She turns her nose into his cheek, listens to him breathe, content and at peace. He says nothing more, but she doesn't need anything else, doesn't need anything more than the prayer of her name like something sacred on his lips. But he gives her more anyway, always more than she could ever deserve. "I love you."

Her fingers combs through the fine hairs at the base of his skull, eliciting the fluttering sensation of his lashes closing against the skin of her cheek. She has never been the wordsmith of the two of them, but even words feel inadequate for him, 'love' not a full explanation to describe the way he floods her heart with light, burning away the last of the dark, decaying pieces inside of her. To explain the good he's done for her, what he's given her, how he has become the home she never knew she needed.

"Love you too," she manages, staining the words to the corner of his mouth, still dancing with him long after the music stops.

* * *

 **A/N: All of my love and gratitude to those who took the time to acknowledge this story, who read and reviewed and offered so much enthusiasm and joy. To my dear friends, Evan, L, and Jill for the invaluable support and unending encouragement when I needed it most. And to Danielle, for the absolutely gorgeous cover art.**

 **Thank you all for another beautiful year. Wishing everyone the happiest of holidays.**


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